Following many weeks of intense training, the day had finally arrived. On Wednesday the 8th of February, the OSC track and field team left Sri Lanka to compete in SAISA 2023 which was held at the American International School Chennai. After a relatively short flight, we landed in India and immediately went to the school for our dinner and to investigate the track. We were all extremely excited and ready to give it our all in the competition.

Day 1 – Thursday 9th February

After waking up at 5 AM and having a nervous breakfast, we headed to the school and I had to get ready for the first event, the 1500m. I was seeded as 3rd with my PB being 5:11 but even though I managed to knock off 11 seconds and set a new PB of 5 minutes, I was still unable to place, coming 8th place in a close finish. I was unhappy as the 1500 was what I believed to be my strongest event but I had no time to feel dejected as we then had an impressive opening ceremony where we were led through the entire school by a procession of drummers.

Following the lunch break, I then had my 2nd event of the day, high jump. I entered the event seeded 8th with my PB of 1.50. I yet again managed to beat my PB being having cleared 1.56 before being eliminated, but this time, I was able to place, coming 6th. I considered this a major success having gone into the event with low expectations and managing to do well.

To finish the day, we then had the 4 by 400 meter relay. Seeing 5 out of the 7 OSC relay teams come 1st for this event prior to ours, the senior OSC boys knew that we had to do well. I was the last 2nd runner to receive the baton and immediately knew that I had a lot of work cut out for myself if we were to salvage anything. Luckily, I gave it my all and managed to get us to 2nd. Zak then managed to close the gap between 1st and 2nd but by the time it got to Sam I was still not too confident. Luckily for us, Sam inhumanly clutched within the final few meters of the race to get us our gold medal and a new team PB of 3:54 with our seed being 3:58, marking the end of a relatively successful 1st day.

Day 2 – Friday 10th February

On day 2, I was yet again a part of the first event of the day, the 800m. This event was not my strongest one and I was unable to make much of a difference to my seeded time of 2:27 getting 2:26 on the day and coming 8th again. My initial pacing of the race was really poor and by the time I reached the last stretch, I knew that I had given myself too much to do. After this event, I was done for the day and was able to socialise with some kids from different schools as well as our team.

Day 3 – Saturday 11th February

All of a sudden it was the final day, and everyone from OSC was determination to do well. My first event of the day was discus which I went into with extremely low expectations after seeing the size of my competitors. Surprisingly though, I found out that size doesn’t matter if you have poor technique as I was able to place in this event, coming 6th even when I wasn’t able to beat my PB of 22m (I got 21.60m at SAISA). The next event I had was long jump and I went into this event seeded 2nd with my PB of 5.20. I immediately knew that this was not a fair reflection of ability though as 6 people before me all managed to jump 5.30. I was unable to get above 5.15 on my first and second jumps and knew that I had to give it my all on my last jump to qualify for finals. Miss Kelly and I were completely convinced that this last jump of mine was easily above 5.30 but by the finest of margins my toes were over the board and I ended up placing 8th. Again.

I was feeling fairly depressed after the disappointment I faced in one of my stronger events long jump but I had to use this unhappiness as motivation to end the tournament on a high with the 4 by 100m relay. Unlike the 4 by 400m relay, this event didn’t give me mini heart attacks as the U20 boys breezed to an relatively easy win with a new team PB of 48.57 seconds (even though my changeover with Sandeep was questionable!). It was the perfect way to finish extremely fun and enjoyable experience that I had over these few days and was the best first and last SAISA that I could have asked for.

 

Learning Outcomes:

Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth: Prior to all of my events, I set myself targets that I wanted to achieve. While I didn’t always achieve these goals, I tried my best to attain a distance or timing which portrayed my growth as an athlete.

Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences: The countless hours of extremely tiring training I put in as a long distance runner as well as waking up at 5 AM everyday we were on the trip were genuinely some of the most brutal experiences that I have ever been through but I persevered through it all and have absolutely no regrets commiting to this CAS experience.