House Gymnastics
House Gymnastics this year was open to Upper II students and was a culmination of a term’s work with Miss Steele during a weekly lunchtime club.
Gymnasts competed mainly in pairs in two categories in front of four judges, along with other Upper I and Upper II students, with Lower I’s keen to catch a glimpse from the open doorways, all inspired by the performances. The students choreographed their own routines to ‘Symphony’ by Clean Bandit, including a number of specific criteria such as rolls, travel, jumps, balances, weight on hands and an element of surprise! Their creativity shone through in their interpretation of the music and especially in the use of colourful rhythmic gymnastic ribbons.
The judges deliberated in awarding their results and all commented on thoroughly enjoying the performances. In one category, the positions were 1st – Jinxin (Kensington), 2nd – Alice (Carrington) and 3rd – Anvitha (Ducat).
In the other section, the gymnasts all worked in pairs and the winners were Bella and Samar, with Livia and Elizabeth in 2nd and Lucy and Emily in 3rd.. Well done to all entrants for their hard work and commitment.
Cross Country
This week, Cross Country runners competed away at The Manor Prep School in Abingdon, across all age groups. This is a popular event with schools from a wide area, that is always fast and competitive, over a relatively flat course.
Our runners all went out hard with great determination and team spirit. Not surprisingly everyone wasn’t able to maintain their initially fast pace, although everyone did demonstrate commitment to finishing and hats off to those who were new to competition and will hopefully come back for more!
There were some particularly strong Abbey performances from Ria, finishing in 1st place in U8; Alice, overtaking fellow athletes in the latter stages to gain 2nd in U10, and Araliya fighting hard to gain 5th in U11.
Modern Biathlon
In the long build up to the National Schools’ Modern Biathlon Championships in March, Araliya should be feeling encouraged, and is to be congratulated for topping her cross-country success (see Cross Country article) with her performance at the Berkshire & South Bucks County Swimming Championships last weekend.
She was a member of two relay teams entered in the event and the 4 x 100m freestyle relay was especially exciting! Araliya was the third leg swimmer and the team of four came away with the gold medal. Congratulations!
Netball
For once the netball gods blessed us with a non-rainy netball day!
With a depleted squad, due to covid the U19’s Abbey Netball team headed to Southampton for the Southern Regional Netball Finals.
A great start to the tournament saw the team win their first match. However a number of injuries during the next game meant that this winning streak was not to continue. The students played well in high spirits, and finished a credible 4th in their table, with one win, two draws and two losses.
