Willowridge High School turned last year’s disappointment of relegation from the Pretoria D-bond athletics inter-high into glory on Monday at the Pilditch Stadium in Pretoria when they comfortably won the Pretoria E-bond inter-high to regain their D-bond status.

Willowridge made a clean sweep of the event by winning all three divisions. Their girls-team collected an impressive 1200 points to beat their nearest rivals, Reddford House The Hills (1019), while their boys-team, with a total of 1163 points, fended off the onslaught of Curro Roodeplaat (1073).

In the overall team division, Willowridge (2363 points) finished comfortably ahead of Centurion Secondary School (2070). They were followed by Reddford House The Hills (2014), Curro Roodeplaat (2009), Maragon Mooikloof (1921), Hoërskool Staatspresident CR Swart (1916), Hoërskool Silverton (1539) and Amberfield College (1466).

This result means that Amberfield College, which finished seventh last year, will be relegated to compete in the F-bond next year.

The event was a triumph for Willowridge High School in more ways than one, as the school also hosted the event with great success.

In addition to Willowridge’s excellent performance, the progress of Centurion Secondary School and Reddford House The Hills, a private school in the East of Pretoria, was remarkable. Both of these two young schools were promoted from the F-bond last year and have shown with their achievements that they are on their way to the top.

The sprints are traditionally a highlight at any school athletics meet and Monday’s E-bond action in the 100m and 200m races also produced the best performances of the day.

The best individual performance of the event in terms of Athletics SA’s Athletics Performance Evaluation (APE) table was that of Nkateko Nkuna from Hoërskool Silverton. She won the 200m for girls u.15 in a new record time of 27.51s. Nkuna completed a double when she also won the 100m for girls u.15 in 13.52s.

Incidentally, Silverton’s athletes generally performed very well in the sprint events. The school earned seven gold medals and a further 12 podium places in the 100m, 200m and 400m races.

A total of 37 new meet records were set during Monday’s E-bond event. An interesting statistic is that only 11 of these new records were set in field events, while the rest were achieved on the track.

There is therefore a lot of room for improvement in field events at this level. Only one athlete was able to earn more than 700 APE points in a field event during the meet. This was Thabisile Mkhosana of Maragon Mooikloof’s attempt of 9.31m in the shot put for u.17 girls.

The Moot representative at this event, Hoërskool Staatspresident CR Swart, particularly impressed in the middle and longer distances (800m, 1500m and 3000m races). The school won four gold medals in these events and earned a further 11 podium places, which increased their medal count. These results indicate that the school’s middle and long distance athletes are certainly receiving good coaching.

Although the event took place in muggy weather with rain threatening to fall all day, the action was able to continue on a dry track. Last year, the Pretoria E-bond event was characterised by rainy weather which meant that athletes had to complete some items on a wet track.

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