Wymondham College Student Zino Mario-Ghae won a gold medal in the Under 15 high jump at the national schools championships this summer.
The championships were held at the famous Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield, the largest athletics stadium in the UK and scene of many memorable athletics achievements.
Read Zino's own account of the competition:
When I went to bed the previous might the word Gold hadn’t even crossed my mind once! The battle was for silver or bronze place. The funny thing is that on the the day I failed a jump of 1.59m and I felt that everything would go wrong as I wasn’t flowing properly in my run up. In addition to that I was up against the Uk number 1 who's personal best was an outstanding 1.95m. All the hype and media attention was around him and the rest of the jumpers including me were just mere competitors compared to this dude.
Well I cleared all the rest of my jumps without failing and when I cleared 1.84 metres he failed it and that was when it occurred to me that I had won the English Schools Athletics Championships! However the competition wasn’t over for me and I had to keep my calm despite my overbearing happiness. I cleared 1.87 next and that was it! Confidence flowed through my blood but that still wasn’t enough to clear 1.90 as I failed that.
I thank God for EVERYTHING and I thank my coach Mr Morgan as I couldn’t have come close to this achievement without him. My next step is to achieve national selection then GB but until then I have to keep training and keep my head down because you really shouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch but God willing then that is my goal.
Congratulations to Zino for this fantastic achievement - to see his winning jump click the link on the right.
Stumble upon Digg
this del.icio.us