We are delighted that Upper VI student, Carys Westcott, has been announced as the winner of “School Personality of the Year” at the Reading Sports Awards 2024!
Get to know Carys:
This is a phenomenal achievement and Carys was awarded her trophy at a special ceremony at the Hilton Hotel on Tuesday night. She faced extremely tough competition but her strength of character, commitment, resilience and endeavour to support others, rightly made her stand out.
Carys said, “I wasn’t expecting it at all and it was amazing to be able to meet other people from Reading who have gone on to have incredibly successful sports careers. It was so lovely to be able to celebrate with friends from all sorts of different sports.”
Carys is already representing Great Britain in triathlon and won gold in the mixed relay at the European Biathle Championships. A silver winner at the British Triathlon Youth National Championships, first under 19 in the Windsor 2024 Triathlon, second woman in the Shinfield 10K this year and qualifier for the National Swimming Championships – to name just a few of her exceptional sporting achievements.
The Abbey proudly nominated Carys for this award because, in addition to her sporting accomplishments, she has such exemplary sportsmanship. This is summed up by what she describes as her proudest moment. It is not a gold medal, or a call-up to represent her country. It was when she crashed her bike at her biggest event of the past year, the British Triathlon Championships. It was a bad crash and for a moment she thought about stopping, but instead, showed inspiring resilience to get back onto her bike and proudly finished the race. It was not about winning, but finishing what she had been working up to all season and not giving up.
If you talk to anyone about Carys, it’s her inspiring strength of character that shines through. She is an ambassador for sport at school and has given talks to inspire younger students to take up activities and not be afraid of setbacks. Her friends talk about how she inspires them, through her dedication, to try and improve in their own sports. At events she loves to support other competitors, who she refers to as friends, and wants to learn from them.
What motivates Carys reflects her joyful, positive, personality. She lists her friends at sporting clubs all over Reading as her main motivation, but her love of chocolate milk and the ‘Operation Mincemeat’ soundtrack help to keep her on track. She has seen the musical nine times and it is “all she listens to” while training as “it’s the perfect length” for her sessions at an hour and four minutes! Her dedication to training is impeccable, putting in up to ten sessions a week, before school, after school and at weekends. Her mum says, “What a lot of people don’t see is getting up at five o’clock in the morning when it’s dark, cold, windy, rainy, you’ve got to scrape the ice off the car just to go to the swimming pool, she’s so unbelievably determined”.
Carys may be representing Great Britain, but she is also right at the heart of Reading’s sporting communities. Active all over town as well as at The Abbey, from swimming at Crossfields pool, training at Palmer Park to running in the Shinfield 10K. She is also a regular at Dinton Country Park Run. She loves being part of the local sporting community so much that even her part-time job is working as a lifeguard at Palmer Park!
Carys’ astounding sporting achievements, at such a young age, are down to her dedication, resilience, talent and determination. The whole Abbey community is so proud of Carys and delighted that she has been given this recognition.
Congratulations “School Personality of the Year” winner at the Reading Sports Awards 2024 – Carys Westcott!
