The Olympic Games motto is Citius Fortius Altius, Latin for ‘Faster Higher Stronger’. The Olympic creed is ‘the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the fight, not to have won but to have fought well’. The founder of the modern Olympic Games was Baron de Coubertin and his Olympic ideal combines the motto and creed in that ‘giving one’s best and striving for excellence is a worthwhile goal’.
Yesterday we took a group of IFS students to compete in the CDSSA athletics carnival at Blacktown – the equivalent of the zone athletics competition. Despite the extremely early start, our students, being natural athletes, were psyched and raring to run, jump and throw to the best of their abilities.
We chose our group of competitors from only 100 students. We competed against colleges who selected from over 1600 students. We held our own in the track events and in each of the 200m races, for boys and girls age groups, we came first or second. In the longer distances, there were commendable performances by many individuals in the 800m and 1500m races. Each and every competitor gave their all and pushed themselves through the pain barrier. Similarly, we held our own on the field, with IFS winning many of the throwing and jumping events.
I think many of the IFS students were surprised by their success and achievement at the carnival, each time learning a little more about themselves and how to achieve their best. We had a couple of individuals withdraw from events and students who came just for support, stepped up to fill their shoes. With all positions contributing to our college’s point tally this was tremendous attitude and team effort to see from these students.
Final results saw two of our students being awarded medals for the best overall competitor in their age group. We also came away with the aggregate winning college award, snatched from Heritage School which has held the award for the past eight years.
Every competitor pushed themselves higher, faster, stronger and while not every student won, they all took up the challenge, fought hard and gave it their best.
As staff members we were all incredibly proud of our team and look forward to taking the top three track athletes and top two field athletes to compete for region at Olympic Park on Monday 2 September.
so great