Oakhill learners shine at Oyster Festival

KNYSNA NEWS - Many Oakhill School learners, parents and friends participated in the various Oyster Festival sporting events during the July school holidays, with a number of the learners performing exceptionally well and earning podium finishes.

Julian Bunge
The first weekend of the festival kicked off with the cycling events, where Julian Bunge (Grade 9) participated, including in the MTBX event.

Unfortunately, a broken derailleur forced Julian to push his bike for the last 3km of the 30km MTB race, but he still managed a top 10 finish. For the 50km road race, Julian broke away with the lead group and earned a fourth in a sprint finish, two seconds behind the winner.

In the final, MTBX event of the festival, Julian finished first overall with a 4min 30sec lead.

Julian Bunge

Jessica Devine
In the various trail-running events, Jessica Devine (Grade 10) proved herself to be a serious contender after only starting running a mere few months ago. She was the first lady home in the Houtkapper event (9km), and second overall. She also broke the ladies record in 50min 50sec! In the Featherbed event (11km), Jessica achieved a great position of seventh lady overall, despite being up against some stiff competition from seasoned athletes. She also came sixth in the ASWD 4km event.

Jessica Devine

Very impressive, especially considering her inaugural trail run was only in May this year at Meiringspoort, where she was the first lady home and placed sixth overall for the 9.5km event. This was followed by a placing of second lady in and third overall at the George MUT mountain ultra-trail 9km event in June.

Aimee Canny & Sophia Trollip
The Oyster Festival's Lagoon Mile Swim had two Oakhill College learners earning podium finishes in the u16 girls category: Aimee Canny (Grade 8) finished first, and Sophia Trollip (Grade 10) came third. Aimee was first woman overall across the line in the 1 850m Lagoon Mile open water event, despite bitterly cold conditions, and this success followed her international swimming tour earlier in June, when she competed in galas in Monaco and Italy.

Sophia Trollip

Swimming with some of the world's best –including Katinka Hosszu and Missy Franklin – Aimee finished fourth in the B Final for both the 50m and 100m freestyle, before attending a four-day training camp in Italy with SA head coach Graham Hill. She ended the tour by doing an International Club Gala and achieved one second place and two fourth places in an open age group category.

Liam Quinn
In Pezula's pro-am Motus Festival of Golf, Liam Quinn (Grade 7) emerged as the winner of the Men's Day. This is no easy feat, especially considering Liam is only 14, and competing against grown men. He has done very well at interprimary school tournaments throughout this year, winning at Goose Valley recently.

He participates regularly in the Southern Cape B Division tournaments, and as his passion for this sport grows, we continue to watch his handicap drop!

Liam Quinn