Record-breaking year for athletics

Worth celebrated its best season to date for athletics in 2023 with a haul of medals, records and fantastic performances in the Diamond League, success at the Sussex Championships and an amazing 17 records broken at our own Sports Day.

It was also great to see participation in external events at record levels and the future for athletics at Worth is looking extremely bright.

The Sussex Independent Schools Diamond League is a highly competitive competition where athletes are able to test themselves in a supportive environment. This year there were just three meets, including the Diamond League Finals, after the first round was lost to the weather.

There were many excellent performances in the Seniors competition (Years 12 and 13), including Gigi claiming a hat-trick of gold medals in the 100m hurdles, 200m and long jump competitions; Bea won four medals in field events, including gold in the javelin, and just missed out on a fifth; our girls’ 4x100m relay team set a new record; our boys’ 4x100m relay team won silver; and Christian claimed 100m individual gold.

Tadhg won the Inters (Years 10 and 11) 100m with a time that was just 0.03 short of the meet-record, while our boys’ 4x100m team won gold with a new meet-record. In the Juniors (Years 7-9) event, Louis won the 100m and 200m sprint double as well as being part of both the Juniors and Inters 4x100m relay teams.

Encouragingly, almost 40% of competitors across all meets and events competed for the first time for Worth and many for the first time ever.

There was further success for our youngest boys and girls at the Prep Schools meets which culminated in the county trials and four of our athletes went on to represent Sussex at the National Prep Schools Athletics Finals in Nuneaton.

At the Sussex Championships which athletes had to qualify for after area trial nominations, Christian again proved victorious in the Senior 100m and AK followed suit in the discus, while Gigi was third in the 100m hurdles. Tadhg qualified for the regionals with second place in the Inters 200m while Louis was first in the Junior 200m, before going on to finish fourth at the regionals.

At Worth’s own Sports Day in May, there were seven Seniors records broken, three Inters records and seven Juniors record, including the girls’ 100m, 200m and triple jump – all by Izzy.

Thank you to Mrs Siobhan Isaacs for all she has done to take athletics at Worth to new levels and thank you also to all coaches who have supported our athletes this season.

For more on Sport at Worth click here.