Lomagundi College’s Interschools Athletics Tournament yesterday (12 March 2016) turned out to be possibly one of the most professionally organized and thrilling events of the 2016 Zimbabwean high school track calendar. With 162 events involving nine boys and eight girls teams from high schools who travelled from five provinces , the invitational spanned eight hours, keeping on perfect schedule. SSN electronically timed the meet with our mobile Fully Automated Timing system from FinishLynx and wrote a live blog of the results throughout the day.
With the conspicuous absence of St George’s College, who chose to hold their Interhouse competition on the same day, Peterhouse Boys dominated the boys’ side of the event from start to finish, coming first with over a 100 point margin to finish with 667 points. St John’s College came second with 552.5 points and Prince Edward third with 548. Falcon College impressively made the trek from Esigodini for the meet, for the first time and proved to have some very competitive sprinters, making their trip worthwhile.
Chisipite Senior School continued their dominance this athletics season, finishing first with 544 points ahead of Peterhouse Girls who were second with 533.5 points. Arundel placed third with 508.5 points.
The Lomagundi Invitational showed that different Zimbabwean high schools have varied strengths across the track and field disciplines. Hellenic Academy held their own in field events, especially throws, showing the results of their investment in coaches in that area. By contrast, Prince Edward exerted their dominance on the track, but fell short in the field. Schools who might not have come in the top four as a whole, fielded individual stellar athletes, surprising students from strong track teams who are used to relatively easy victories by snatching first and second places in a number of events.
The meet was held under perfect cool and slightly cloudy weather to see an impressive number of records broken. Rain threatened and started coming down during the hour long lunch break, but then stopped as quickly as it had started until the meet was over. Conspicuous by their absence was Eaglesvale High School who registered to participate in the invitational but didn’t show up on the day, leaving one lane in all races empty.
| High School | Place | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Chisipite Senior School | 1st | 544 |
| Peterhouse Girls College | 2nd | 533.5 |
| Arundel School | 3rd | 508.5 |
| Lomagundi College | 4th | 506.5 |
| Hellenic Academy | 5th | 484.5 |
| Kyle College | 6th | 404 |
| Midlands Christian College | 7th | 265.5 |
| Goldridge College | 8th | 259.5 |
| High School | Place | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Peterhouse Boys College | 1st | 667 |
| St John’s College | 2nd | 533.5 |
| Prince Edward School | 3rd | 548 |
| Lomagundi College | 4th | 531.5 |
| Falcon College | 5th | 466.5 |
| Kyle College | 6th | 462 |
| Midlands Christian College | 7th | 419.5 |
| Hellenic Academy | 8th | 392 |
| Goldridge College | 9th | 347 |