Athletics

 Coaches:  Mr J Farrelly & Mr S Nyamariwata 

 

 

Athletics at St George's occurs primarily in the first term of the school year.  It is a well developed and highly successful programme that allows every student in the College to participate and excel.  The programme involves all track events up to and including 3000 / 5000m and all the field events.

As soon as the boys start in January, the Cross-Country season begins.  This provides endurance training for the athletes and compliments other sporting disciplines.

At the end of February, every student transfers to Athletics, making it the only true all school sport.  The schedule involves House Standards, from which House Staff select their teams and the Form One Pentathlon for College Newcomers.

The School Team is assembled from previous years performances and the Inter House Competition.  Both myself and Simba Nyamariwata coach the track athletes.  This involves conditioning and speed work based on our own routines and input from Brian Dzingai.  We use outside coaching for various field techniques and this is reinforced by our P.E. Department.

There are three major Inter-Schools events, the Peterhouse Relays, Saint George's Invitation and the main Inter-Schools Competition.  We are the current holders of the trophies for these last two events.

Athletics is acknowledged in the third term when a small group of Senior boys elect to participate.  It involves a variety of endurance training techniques - including hill training, weight training and on occasion aerobics.

The programme outlined above is intense and allows athletes with ability to develop and optimise their talent.  We currently have a number of boys pursuing athletics programmes in the United States all of whom have won scholarships based on their performances whilst at the College.  We can also boast of Brian Dzingai a product of this programme who has gone on to coach Athletics at Florida State University and amongst many track achievements ran to fourth place in the Beijing Olympics 200m final, currently the fastest 200m race ever run.

JOHN FARRELLY

I/C ATHLETICS