Kids’ Athletics Competition 2023 |04 December 2023

Winners La Digue

La Digue School dominates competition to finish as overall best

After the exploit of the Baie Ste Anne primary school last year, another school from the inner islands, namely La Digue, excelled at this year’s Kids’ Athletics Competition, held on Saturday, to emerge as champions, taking best overall cup on another boat trip.

Saturday’s competition which took place at Stad Popiler gathered five teams – Glacis, Plaisance, Mont Fleuri, Anse Boileau and La Digue primary schools – who were champions of their respective regions following the preliminaries.

Created in 2005, Kids’ Athletics is one of the biggest grassroots development programmes in the world of sports, having been implemented in 134 member Federations of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), reaching an estimated cumulative audience of more than 13 million children.

The aim of the Kids’ Athletics Programme is to encourage children of primary-school age to practice athletics and inspire children, in this era of internet and video games, to be more physically active.

It operates by engaging young people through exciting and creative means of practicing athletics.

In Seychelles, the programme is being coordinated by Kids’ Athletics Committee, under the umbrella of the Seychelles Athletics Federation (SAF).

It is chaired by Gerish Rachel, while Giovanni Fanny is the coordinator, with Linda Jeanne as treasurer and Antoinette Athanase as secretary.

Its other members are Rency Balgobin, Beryl Larame, Ricardo Suzette, Soutane Robert and Monica Samson.

Saturday’s event was officially launched by SAF chairman Selby Dora who reminded the young athletes and all those present that kids’ athletics is the base of the sport as it caters for, and prepares future generations of athletes.

Mr Dora said it is therefore very important that we invest in the kids, so that the base can be safely maintained.

He also encouraged the athletes to adopt a Fair Play mentality, even if athletics is a competitive sport.

On Saturday’s programme there were standing long-jump, vortex throw, ball throw (kneeling down), shuttle relay hurdles and formula one obstacle challenge.

In standing long-jump, Plaisance came out first with a total distance of 23.80m, finishing ahead of Mont Fleuri who took second place with total distance of 23.40m.

La Digue and Anse Boileau were joint-third with a total distance of 23.20m.

In vortex throw, La Digue came out first with a total distance of 258.20m, finishing ahead of runners-up Plaisance – 235m, while Glacis finished third with a total distance of 191.60m.

For ball throw (kneeling down), La Digue finished first with a total distance of 69m, ahead of second-placed Plaisance – 67.6m, while Mont Fleuri finished third overall with a total distance of 59.2m.

In shuttle relay hurdles, La Digue clocked two minutes, 53.7 seconds (2:53.7) to finish first, ahead of second-placed Plaisance – 2:59.6, with Anse Boileau finishing third in 3:01.2.

In formula one obstacle challenge, La Digue once again dominated the other schools, finishing first in 4:19.06, ahead of Anse Boileau who finished second in 4:31.66, and third-placed Plaisance who clocked 4:33.63.

Overall, La Digue collected a grand total of 23 points to finish as this year’s champions, ahead of Plaisance who came out second with 20 points.

Third overall was Anse Boileau with 13 points, while Mont Fleuri finished fourth with 12 points.

Glacis finished fifth overall with nine points.

Overall results of the 2023 Kids’ Athletics Competition

Standing long-jump