Patience  

Mo Farah, the amazing distance runner from Great Britain, showed a lot of patience to wait for the right time in the big 10,000m race at the 2016 Rio Olympics.  

Farah started at the back of the pack and after moving into position just under halfway through the race, he tripped and fell.  These precious seconds lost would be important. Farah picked himself up quickly and kept his composure, pushing himself back into a decent position, heading into the final stage of the race. 

3 laps to go … Farah moved into 2nd place, kept his composure and was patient, waiting for the right time to make his move and go for it. 

2 laps to go … still in 2nd place but the Kenyans were moving into position to strike. Farah makes his first move, taking the lead and setting a faster pace.  They all moved for position, as the commentator is heard saying, “They’re all jostling now, to get into the right place at the right time.”  

1 lap to go … everyone starts sprinting! Running sub 55 second 400m times in this race meant that this last lap would be fast and furious.   

Farah, coming into the last lap, surrounded by the ultra-quick Ethiopians and Kenyans - the last lap would have to be timed to perfection.  

300m to go … Farah sees competitors moving quickly on his outside, so he goes faster. He wants to be in the right spot to make his final move. 

200m to go … it is a fight to the finish, pushing themselves harder and faster than they have ever gone. Farah is in 2nd place and ready to go. 

100m to go … Farah pushes to the side of the Kenyan Tanui and turns on the jets, making his last sprint to the finish line his strongest yet.  

Finish line … Farah wins Gold by 3m, cementing his place in history as one of the greatest long distance runners ever!  To win such a fast race, after falling over, is truly inspirational.  He timed his final sprint to perfection.  He was patient, waiting for the right moment.  

Farah won in a time of 27:04mins. 

To say that he is a superb athlete is an understatement.  He not only won the 10,000m at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, but also repeated this feat in the 5,000m (which he ran in 13:02mins in 2016).  Now that is unbelievably fast.

It has been a challenging year for everyone, not being able to be involved in the sport as usual.  Not having the chance to train every Tuesday night, work hard at polishing those skills required to improve your game, hang out with your mates, has been a difficult time for our budding sport enthusiasts. 

Although this has been a tough time, it has still been an opportunity to develop a number of characteristics and traits with one in particular … patience.  Patience is definitely a hard trait to master.  To wait for something calmly, for a certain amount of time, is not an easy skill to have and one that we all need to practise.  

Being patient with sport in 2020 is one thing we have all had to demonstrate. We want to get out and train; we want to get out onto the track or field and push ourselves to exhaustion, knowing that we are better for it; we want to get out and be involved, competing against peers and testing ourselves to see how our skills are holding up. 

The saying “patience is a virtue” is something to consider.  Having the ability to display composure, perseverance and diligence are important assets to any athlete’s arsenal.  This self-control helps you to make the right decisions at the right time.  

As in Mo Farah’s races, he showed great patience and perseverance to wait for the right moment to make his move, to take the lead and make a break for it.  We can all learn something from this; we need to be patient in waiting for restrictions to be lifted; patient to begin training, to being competition, and to begin resuming our normal sporting schedule. 

Gary Player, a professional golfer, states that, “Patience, practiced correctly, is a powerful mental tool that unlocks so many other positives and that will also give you the kind of perspective others may lack under pressure.” 

Even though it has not been an ideal sporting year, developing our patience will give us many other positives in life. 

SPORT EVENTS UPDATE 

With sport starting to show signs of normality at school and on the weekend, we have recently been notified that the following sport events have been cancelled for Term 3: 

This means that unfortunately, both CSSA Cross Country and Athletics events have been cancelled, along with their level pathways (CIS, PSSA).  Though there are no representative carnivals for students to qualify for in cross country and athletics, we are still planning on holding school carnivals (both Primary and Secondary) in these events.  These will probably be held towards the end of Term 3 and/or during Term 4. Further information will be communicated to parents once details have been finalised. We love to have students participate in these carnivals, not just for their own experience at competing in athletic and running events, but also for the sense of community that this brings.  We are also keen to continue rewarding our top competitors with Age Champion trophies and the winning House for each carnival. 

We still have a number of representative events scheduled for next term and Term 4 that we hope will run, but we still need to wait for confirmation.  These are: 

With the cancellation of a number of representative events this year, we are still planning at providing opportunities for students (both Primary and Secondary) to trial for a specific school team, and then once this team has been finalised, playing some friendly matches against local schools and/or playing in a round robin tournament. More details about these trials will be communicated to students.