I decided to sit down with (or, rather, phone) the individual members to get an insight into their thinking, their visions, and their expectations of the year ahead. It was a truly eye-opening experience, and I’m thrilled to present the outcomes of the discussion with Havaani, the Sports rep.
What do you love most about sport and why this role?
My favourite thing about sport is that it’s something that I can use as an outlet; it helps me to take my mind off other stresses that are going on in my life. Although being a high performing athlete comes with its own expectations, I find sport is so rewarding and something that I’ve done for so long I know I wouldn’t be able to ‘function’ without it.
Being chosen as Sports Captain is an honour and I want to help everyone no matter if you’re a competitive athlete or someone who just does exercise for fun. I want to help people find some sort of enjoyment from sport. I feel everyone can benefit hugely from sport in general and it’s a great way to ‘escape’ the stresses of everyday life.
What kinds of vague ideas/plans/visions do you have for the coming year?
A few ideas I have for the coming year include trying to rebuild inter-year connections within the High-Performance Programme. Before Covid there used to be external people brought in to run sessions and I found it was really useful for the younger students to connect with the older, and to get advice.
Additionally, I think it’s very important that the students in younger years can participate in however many sports they want to, so that they can find what they truly like. I found there are a lot of clashes between matches and/or competitions and I want to try work with the PE department to see if we can reduce this to give the best opportunity for girls to explore all sports and not have to pick between them too soon.
Which sport do you find overrated and why?
If I had to pick one, I’d have to say men’s football. Don’t get me wrong, they can be very impressive, I just find it funny when I watch how women just get back up and in men’s football you sometimes have them rolling on the ground after another player hasn’t even touched them. It’s quite entertaining really, almost like they’re putting on a show; a little GCSE drama piece even.
