New Essex champions were crowned when the joint team of Southview School in Witham and Doucecroft School from Colchester beat all-comers in the Essex Multisport Panathlon Final.
Lancaster School from Southend, Oakview from Loughton, Treetops from Grays and the hosts Columbus School from Chelmsford battled it out with the joint Douncecroft / Southview team and all teams performed exceptionally well.
Oakview started well, winning the boccia competition and both Columbus (who won table cricket) and Treetops (who won new-age kurling) provided stiff competition, but Doucecroft / Southview’s victories in Polybat, field athletics and athletics races earned them 50 points, ahead of Oakview in second with 40 and Treetops in third with 38 points. A full set of results can be seen here.
Jessica Green (pictured right) a participant in the wheelchair slalom competition from Southview School, said, 
“I’ve competed loads of times at Panathlon, but this is the first time I’ve won gold and I was so happy I just burst into tears!
“My favourite sport is the wheelchair slalom and I take part in the wheelchair race too. I can’t believe I’ve finally won gold!”
Carol Park, the team coordinator for Southview said, “It’s been the best part of ten years since Southview last won Panathlon and it’s our new found partnership with Doucecroft School that has helped us develop further.”
This was echoed by Andrea Griffiths from Doucecroft School, who said: “It’s been great to work with Southview School and partner up with them to provide competitors with a range of abilities, for all the various sports. We’ll share the glory today and look forward to our partnership continuing next year.”
Nikki Casey from the Jack Petchey Foundation, who have funded Panathlon in Essex for the last 11 years, was present to witness the action.
Nikki said; “It’s always the highlight of my year coming to Panathlon and seeing first hand the hard work and efforts of those children who have been practicing for months to compete in the Final. It is incredibly rewarding seeing their reaction to their success and so many happy students and teachers! I even heard one of the pupils say that he wanted his teachers to get a medal. I thought this was so lovely!”
We
had another medallist with us in the shape of Panathlon Events Assistant Freya Levy, who just last week won bronze in Thailand with her fellow G.B. team-mates in the U-25 Women’s Wheelchair Basketball World Championships.
Freya is pictured here proudly showing off her medal with the team from Lancaster School in Southend.
Many thanks also pay to our Young Leaders from Sir John Payne School in Chelmsford (pictured below) who were excellent in their organisational duties. They were drawn from various year groups and all showed great leadership skills. Thank you to you all.
