Camperdown ‘sprint factory’ in development stage

In the past, Camperdown High earned the moniker ‘sprint factory’ for the school’s dominance in the sprint events. Though their dominance has waned, head coach Okeile Stewart is hoping the school can return to their lofty heights.

Stewart said the team’s focus this year is on rebuilding their programme and doing their work at the grass-roots level.

He credits his staff for the work being done and is confident that the school will see results in short order.

However, he admitted that while he has a talented squad on hand, they are not on the level of Camperdown teams of the past.

“To say that we’re the force of former years, I can’t say that right now. But I can say that we have talented athletes and a group of dedicated coaches who have decided to stick to the task, and we hope that in a few years, we can reclaim the name ‘Sprint Factory’.

“Right now we’re rebuilding from the grass-roots level, and we hope that with time, we can put ourselves back to where we’d like to be.”

Camperdown finished with a single point in the boys’ standings last year to place inside the top 40 schools while the girls placed 14th with 30 points.

According to Stewart, the team has seen many improvements in their performances this season, and he is confident that they will have a better showing this time around.

“We’ve been looking at a lot of persons that have been running personal best times, in some cases taking even a whole second off their times, and we are quite pleased with them going into the championships.

“It is for us now to ensure they hydrate, any little niggles we try to get them fixed, and we hope that it will be enough to get on the podium and get some points for Champs. We are confident that we can expect better performances from Camperdown at the Champs.”

The Stewart-led team will be a fairly young squad as Camperdown will be facing the departure of several senior athletes.

According to Stewart, the team will also be faced with filling the gaps as a few athletes have left Camperdown to represent other schools.

“As I have mentioned before, we’re still in the developmental stages as we would have lost some of our key players that would have been in Class One as well as some key Class Three and Four players who have moved on to different schools, so we’re just trying to put back everything together and move on from there.”

Stewart said the team will not be aiming for any particular ranking at Champs but is open to seeing ‘wherever the chips fall’ for them.