A Few good sporting stories have emerged this week.
Not perhaps in the number of Jersey football teams playing in the Jeremie Cup (because they can’t afford it), but certainly in the Duquemin household, after 16-year-old Zane won the intermediate boys’ discus at the Sainsbury’s English Schools Track and Field Championships.
That earned him high praise from no less a source than former Olympic gold medallist Daley Thompson.
With Jamie Stevenson and Lauren Thérin also up there with the best of British, we seem to have some excellent ‘chuckers’ in the Island at the moment, with Zane’s younger sister, Shadine, also likely to join them.
As someone who has never kept a newspaper cutting about my own successes (or failures) with the exception of a page from the JEP 30-plus years ago, which said: ‘Scrum-half Chris Luke then scored a match-winning try’, I would hope that the Duquemins have cut out and kept Daley Thomson’s quotes from Monday’s paper, which include: ‘Zane put in a tremendous effort, thoroughly deserving of his gold medal as well as the title of 2008 English Schools Championship under-17 boys intermediate champion.’
Memories – and cuttings like that – are a rarity in most people’s lives, and even if Zane never picks up a discus again, the championship and Thompson’s words are to be fully savoured both now and in years to come because no-one can ever take the words, or this year’s title, away from him.
Article posted on 18th July, 2008 - 3.00pm
One Article Comment
Indeed it is good to read about the continuing progress of Jersey’s throwers - a continuing mystery to Guernsey at inter-insular time! Maybe you’d do an investigative piece on the reasons behind this success at some time?
Compare Jersey to this rather bigger island of Ireland which has a proud history in throwing. With the one-off exception of hammer thrower Eileen O’Keefe the cupboard is pretty bare right now. In the recent European League fixture the selectors were forced to pick a 16-year old girl (admittedly talented for her age) in the discus event for her senior internatonal debut, she being second best to Eileen, who was doing her specialist throw.
Also, be proud of your facilities for throwing at the FB Fields. Eileen is prohibited from using the national athletics stadium for training (because of the footballers) and has to look for sparse alternative facilities.