Queen Elizabeth's Grammar
SchoolEnglish Schools’ Athletics Championships
On the Thursday 7th of July, Evie Brooks (Y12) and Yemisi Akande (Y10) made their way with the Lincolnshire Athletics Team and coaches to Manchester to represent Lincolnshire at the Manchester Regional Arena, in our representative events, for the English Schools Athletics Association Track and Field Competition.
Evie was representing Lincolnshire in the U19s senior girls 800m events and Yemisi was representing Lincolnshire in the U17s intermediate girls 100m event. The meet was split up into 2 days; on day 1 were the qualifying heats and day 2 were the finals, if the athletes were successful in their heats.
On day 1, Evie was running in heat 2; there were 3 heats in her event. The 800m senior girls’ events was the last event of the day, which wasn’t ideal as Evie was in the stadium for 10 hours before her event. However, it did allow her to have a very good warm up, giving her the best possible chance to qualify of the final on day 2. Evie ran a brilliant race, which enabled her to finish in 4th place. Evie went through the first 400m in 62 seconds, which was 2 seconds quicker than her 400m PB.
Despite, Evie not making it through her heat, she did achieve a PB of 2:15 seconds, smashing her previous PB by 2 seconds. Overall, Evie finished 13th out of 24 qualifiers; this was an excellent achievement, considering she was competing against athletes that were a year older than her.
Please view the clip to watch Evie competing in the 800m.
On day 1, Yemisi was running in heat 1; there were 4 heats in her event. Despite all the nerves, she comfortably won her heat race with a time of 11.91 seconds. To put this into perspective, only 3 girls this year have ran sub 12 seconds and Yemisi was one of them! After winning her heat she was then into the semi-finals, which was later in the day. She was on the track in the second heat of the two semi-final heats. Again, Yemisi was successful and won her semi-final heat with a time of 12.02seconds. The win and time qualified her to the finals that would be taking place the next day, Saturday 9th July.
Day 2 came, and everyone was nervous and excited, to go home at the end of the day and for the finals in their races. Thankfully before the 100m finals there was a parade where the athletes could showcase their county to the parents at the arena and those watching at home. At 3:10pm, Yemisi positioned herself on the blocks and waited for the gun to go off. Within a flash, she powered into the lead and never looked back, crossing the finish line with a time of 11.89s without the .02m/s wind speed. Yemisi had won gold and was crowned the intermediate girls 100m 2022 winner.
Yemisi has now been selected to represent England in the Home Countries’ International Schools’ Track and Field International, which is being held in Belfast, Northen Ireland on Friday 15th to Sunday 17th July. Everyone at QEGS are extremely proud of her and wishes her all the best for the weekend.
The YouTube link of the National Athletics Championships that Yemisi Akande was involved in over the weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tmzypl9RSA
This should take you to the 100m final - if not you'll need to go to 5 hours 19 mins.
