101 Competitors from 10 East London schools from; Hackney, Islington, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest took part in the first round of the Panathlon Challenge at Clissold Leisure Centre in Hackney today.
This was the start of the Panathlon journey for 101 competitors that will hopefully lead to their teams qualifying for the grand London Final in the Copper Box Arena in the Olympic Park in June. It also follows on swiftly from the swimming competition last week for 38 young Panathletes who competed for their Boroughs at the same east London venue.
We were assisted today by Young Leaders from the nearby Petchey Academy in Hackney who ran the sports incredibly well and performed their duties impecibly.
After a tight days action with Hackney winning Boccia and Table Cricket, and Waltham Forest taking the Polybat and Kurling, it was very tight going in to the athletics field events and races. Each team won a discipline so it meant that the scores were incredibly close between these 2 teams. The Final results were…
1st Hackney 50
2nd Waltham Forest 48
3rd Islington 42
4th Tower Hamlets 26
A full breakdown of the scores per sport, can be seen if you click results. This means that Hackney & Waltham Forest qualify for the East London Final on 25th March at the UEL Sportsdock in the main competition. Islington and Tower Hamlets will now compete again in the Plate Final with the runners up of the next East London qualifier, involving Newham, Redbridge, Havering and Barking & Dagenham, which takes place on February 4th.
This is what the Panathletes from Brookfield House in Waltham Forest had to say about today’s competition, Henrique, “I enjoyed the race!” Calvin, “I’ve had a GREAT time.”
Neriman, “Our team has done well!”
The Tower Hamlets Teachers noted that the, “Students always have fun at Panathlon” and that the competition is played in “Competitive but supportive atmosphere”. They mentioned that this competition is, “A great chance for our pupils to meet students from other schools through sports and their students don’t get many opportunities like this.”
Yaqub, Panathlon Official from The Petchey Academy said, “It was great to see the tenacity these children demonstrated. They proved they were not limited by their disability.”
The schools competing today were-
Hackney – Stormont House & Garden
Tower Hamlets – Beatrice Tate & Phoenix
Islington – Richard Cloudesley, The Bridge, Samuel Rhodes
Waltham Forest – Whitefield, Brookfield & William Morris
Also today we had 4 West London Schools competing in their Swimming Competition in Northolt, meaning we had over 125 competitors in action in London. To read more about the swimming event, please see here:
