Blackburn and Darwen School Games

On Monday 24th March Queen Elizabeth Grammar School’s Sports Venue hosted the final race of this year’s Blackburn Primary schools cross country competition. This was the third and final race of the year, with the previous two coming two weeks ago and the first being way back in October. 20 Schools in total took part and to be part of the team event, and boys and girls team event, each school had to have at least 4 runners in each of the 3 nights. However schools that didn’t bring this amount were still entered into the individual race scores.

 

Over 150 children attended the events and all did themselves and their schools proud. The scoring is based on where the children finish. So for finishing 1st you get 1 point, 2nd receives 2 points and so on. After every athlete is finished in the girls race, the top 4 from each school scores are combined to get the girls team scores, this is then repeated for the boys race. After this these scores are combined again to get the final overall team score.

 

The individual scores are also done using the same scoring method.In the individual races a very impressive set off performances from Amy Davies of St Peter’s RC, saw her win all 3 of the races, nearly catching the hare on the final occasion, she finished ahead of Natasha Pim from Shadsworth with Lauren Helm of The Redeemer taking 3rd. In the Boys race, Tom Midgley of Balderstones Primary School managed to hold off challenges from Dominic Poole from Shadsworth and Tom Voce of The Redeemer who claimed 2nd and 3rd respectively.

 

Within the team races The Redeemer took the girls overall team event narrowly edging out Salesbury and Westholme. In the boys event Salesbury managed to go one better, this time claiming 1st place fending off challenges from Shadsworth who finished 2nd and Westholme who finished 3rd. This meant that when the scores where combined over the 3 nights, Salesbury were crowned the 2014 champions with Westholme finishing 2nd and The Redeemer finishing 3rd.

 

The teams schools which took part in all 3 of the race nights were: Audley, Balderstones, Cedars Primary, Feniscowles, Lammack, Longshaw Juniors, Lower Darwen, Meadowhead Juniors, QEGS, The Redeemer, Roe Lee, Salesbury, St Barnabas and St Paul’s, Shadsworth, St Anthony’s, St Gabriel’s, St Pauls’ RC, St Peter’s RC, Wensley Fold and Westholme.

 

‘It was great to see this competition growing every year and over 150 children running and enjoying competitive racing. It is a really tough and challenging event and the children should be extremely proud of themselves for making it around the course. I would like to say a huge thank you to QEGS for allowing us to use their wonderful facilities, all the teachers who helped marshal the event and a special thank you to Debs Campbell and Lisa Kit who run this competition every year, many people don’t understand the time and effort that goes into organising and totaling up the scores in this event. I would like to congratulate every school that took part in the event, a special congratulations to schools and individuals that won medals and trophies tonight, well done. We look forward to seeing you all next year.’