Tuesday 20th February 2018 will be a day which will never be forgotten. The annual Glasgow Schools’ Cross-Country Championships took place at Netherpollok, Pollok Park. The school had a record number of entries for the event which is amazing considering we were missing a number of runners due to illness and injury. The event is a massive date on the sporting calendar. Only the Glasgow Schools Cross Country and the Glasgow Athletics do we have such a large number of our pupils out of school. Here’s how the races unfolded:
S1 Girls
Lucie, Olive, Maebh and Sara kicked off the days events. After seeing the course the girls nerves settled down considerably. There was mud but there was no big hills to contend with. Lucie has shown good promise at cross-country despite being in her words “a sprinter”. Her top 15 (14th) finish at the event should give her a lot of confidence to go on and place even higher up in future races, this is the third best performance we’ve had from an S1 girl in the history of SGG. All girls came inside the top 50 with Olive 47th, Maebh 48th and Sara 49th all packing well together.
S1 Boys
The S1 boys have been flying in training. They’ve been working hard and impressively there were 10 entries for the race due to the quality of their efforts in school. David was an impressive 15th in the race. Equally impressive were: Adam H 27th, Isaac 36th,Jed 37th, Joel 40th, Calum B 44th, Cameron W 53rd, Daniel 56th, Anndra 68th and Sam 83rd. Look out for these guys in the future, if the keep up this rate of hard work and effort then they’ll get their just rewards.
S2 Girls
Similar to the S1 Boys this year the S2 girls have really been impressive in everything they’ve been doing in PE and sport at SGG. Their enthusiasm, effort and dedication to improving their performances in sport has been admirable to say the least. The girls had a full team out for the race and were in high spirits after going better in training this year. Peggy-Nan was first over the line in 8th, Abbey 33rd, Cerys 38th, Ameilia 39th, Kerry 47th, Millie A in her first experience of Cross-Country 57th and Sophie P 68th. The girls packed amazingly well and were rewarded with the bronze team medals! Congratulations to all the team.
S2 Boys
The boys were a couple of men down for the event coupled with Fionn having a horrendous cold. This didn’t stop the boys from putting in a great performance. Fionn despite the cold came home in a very impressive 20th position, he was backed up by Rico (first XC) 28th, Connor 30th, Seumas 66th and Flynn (first XC) 68th. The boys will be pushing for a team medal next year if they keep progressing at the rate they have over the last year but they will also need Robert, Aaron and Odhran all fit and healthy.
S3 Girls
One of the most impressive individual and team performances of the day came from the S3 Girls. Shona Carey who was 12th in S1, 6th last year went on put her best performance to date finishing with the Bronze medal. She ran with such confidence and kept up a frantic pace with the girl from Hutcheson who finished in Silver, it was an amazing to watch. The rest of the girls in the team also put in their best performances to date with: Beth 15th, Chloe 21st, Niamh (first XC) 31st, Abigail 37th, Mirren 40th and Kristen 50th. The girls were rewarded team silver, absolutely deserved after a brilliant team performance.
S3 Boys
The boys team this year was a mixture of those who’ve done cross-Country before and those that are new to the event. The team was with out Robaidh who was a bronze medalist last year but this didn’t deter this year’s team at all. Duncan again put in a great performance finishing in 11th, Patrick 19th, Kyle (first XC) 29th, Sean 38th, Lewis (first XC) 39th, Luke 49th and Jack(first XC) 51st. There have been massive improvements made by the S3 Boys this year and I’m looking forward to seeing them fighting for team medals next year.
Senior Girls
Amy Craig was competing in her last Glasgow Schools Cross Country. Amy has been an excellent performer at these Championships for the school over the years. We wish her all the best for her future endeavours. On the day she put another great performance finshing in 8th position in a high quality field. Iona was 41st and Abigail 42nd.
S4 Boys
Well the last race of the day which involved 4.5km of cross country running was very entertaining. As with previous years the S4 Boys ran together with the Senior S5/6s but were running their own competitive race. The S4 Boys were motivated to do well in this year’s event after ‘missing’ last year’s event. This proved good fuel for the fire as the boys went out and absolutely dominated the team competition and took home the Gold medals and the Team Trophy. This meant that SGG retained the team title that the senior boys won last year, two in a row! Aidan Tittmar who has been working very hard in training over the last couple of years ran the race of his life to finish in 2nd position. This is his second indiviual medal at Glasgow Schools Championships after picking up Bronze in the 400m last summer too. He was backed up by Alasdair Campbell who was competing in his first ever competitive cross country race. He worked his way through the field to finish with the Bronze medal!!! What an absolute brilliant result, we are delighted for you Alasdair. Alexander also worked his was through, and finished with a top 10 placing, his first ever in his 4 years at the event. What a time to do it, he finished 9th. Findlay Dickson was 10th, he’d been off the day before the race and has missed a lot of training due to illness so we appreciate him lining up for the school. Gilles was 15th, his best performance at the championships, he’s a lot fitter this year due to his hard work in school and with his football team. Calum S was 19th and Cameron was 22nd. Cameron was competing in his first ever Cross-Country event. Congratulations to all the team!
Senior Boys
This year was the first time we’ve had a senior boys team compete at these Championships. We hope this will be the first of many. Daniel who has been the most successful performer for SGG at Cross-Country knew he would be in a harder race this year. With the event 4 days before the Scottish National Championships all fields had more club level runners in them. None more so that the Senior Boys. Daniel again put an excellent display of endurance, confidence and race tactics together to finish with the Bronze medal. Over the 3 laps he increased his speed to chip away at the field. At the bridge on the last lap he still had a lot to do to catch the runner in 3rd position. Daniel timed this to perfection and over took him in the last stages of the race. His third individual medal in 3 years. David put an awesome race together to finish in 5th, Andrew C 7th, Benjamin 16th, Calum 22nd and Ruairidh 27th ensured the team title came back with us to SGG! Congratulations to the team their third team medals in a row and second Team Gold winning performance!
It was a landmark day for Sgoil Ghaidhlig Ghlaschu. The smallest school in the city came away with 4 individual and 4 sets of team medals. This is such and amazing achievement from our pupils. It is all down to their own hard work, great attitude and high levels of effort. Keep it up!
