The NSW Schools Team, known as the NSW Carbines, have had a fantastic set of results at the Australian Schools Championships in Tasmania. As well as bringing home 2nd place overall in the team competition behind Tasmania there were medals galore for the individuals and teams.
Michele Dawson was a standout winner of the individual Senior Girls course, coming in first nearly 3 minutes ahead of New Zealander Lauren Turner. Michele's win is the first ever win for a NSW Senior Girl since the Schools competition was started over 13 years ago. Daniel Hill was the 2nd Australian home in the Junior Boys course in a highly competitive event which saw some very quick times at the top of the leader board. Georgia Jones missed out on a place by 42 seconds in the Junior Girls. There were solid results consistently close together for the NSW competitors, giving the teams Gold in the Junior Boys, Silver in the Senior Girls and Bronze in the Junior girls in the combined results. There was real disappointment for the Senior Boys with key runner Matt Hill sustaining a serious ankle injury over the previous weekend, which prevented him turning in the sparkling performance we have become accustomed to. Although the rest of the Senior Boys did their best, the Tasmanian, Victorian and ACT teams proved just too strong for them to get a place this year.
There was more excitement in the Relays on Wednesday and more success for NSW. Strong performances and high levels of concentration allowed NSW to take Bronze in Junior Boys, Junior Girls and Senior Girls teams. Senior Boys failed to finish when a brave performance by Matt Hill was cut short by a second ankle injury.
The announcement of the Honour Roll brought more awards to NSW with an amazing four of our athletes named. The Honour Roll recognises individual performance and consistency over the two days of Schools Championships from the entire Australian competition, so it is a matter of great pride that Michele Dawson (Senior Girls), Nicola Blatchford (Senior Girls), Daniel Hill (Junior Boys) and Georgia Jones (Junior Girls) were named in the Honour Roll for 2012.
