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Nadine Tomkinson (Y11) has completed a clean sweep of gold medals during the Newcastle Schools’ Cross-Country season.  Nadine followed up a successful year last year in which she went on to represent Staffordshire at the All England Schools’ National competition in Leeds.  There she placed an incredible 75^th to be ranked well inside the top 100 young women runners at her age group in the country.

This year Nadine has been adamant that she would win the Newcastle competition outright.  Athletes must compete in all of the races based at Chesterton, Sir Thomas Boughey, Wolstanton and Clayton with their best three finishing positions being added up to calculate their overall rank.  The maths for Nadine was simple: ran four, won four.  It was a teary Nadine at the finish line of the race held at Clayton last Tuesday, 16^th October as she drew the curtain down on her high school running as the undisputed champion of Year 10 and 11 girls.

Nadine came in to running rather late.  It was in a PE lesson in year 7 that she first displayed an ability to run for distance without fatigue.  Although very raw she was encouraged to compete at the School athletics competition in the Summer of 2014 over the 1500m to which she did so.  As she came through the finish line in 7^th place it was clear that Nadine had caught the running bug.  In year 8 she was at running club fresh for the new cross-country season, keen to develop her ability and pursue success.  Over the years her confidence grew.  Her positioning improved from making the top 20 to competing with the top 10.  She joined Newcastle Running Club in which she has made many friends that are her training partners but also most fierce rivals.  Competing week in, week out has pushed Nadine to the next level and this was evident as she went all out to control each and every race this year from the front.

It has been fantastic as a PE department to work with such a committed individual and we wish her all the luck in the future.  We hope to keep everyone updated as she will inevitably be competing against the Nation’s best at the All England event once more in early 2019.

Mr M Maxted
Head of PE