Inspired by an athletics challenge made famous in the film Chariots of Fire, TAS hosted it’s own footrace through the historic heart of the school when the inaugural Great Cloisters Run took place on Founders Day, this year celebrated on 30 March.
In the film, two students sprint around the quadrangle of Trinity College, Cambridge, aiming to finish before a clocktower strikes twelve. For the TAS version (an initiative of MIC Athletics Mr Jim Pennington), a student from each sporting house and age group (from under 13s to Opens) ran a relay around the Lawrance Quadrangle and on a 306m rectangular course through the school. The Headmaster started the race by ringing the Payne bell, which was donated by the Payne family of ‘Waverley’ Scone in 1966, in memory of their father Stephen (1904-06) and brother Stephen James (1939-45).
As students cheered on their House and the Chariots theme song played, runners sprinted past the Boston Ivy-covered cloisters, turning eastward at the TR Forster Block past the school’s second gym (now the woodwork room), around the RJ Magoffin Building that comprises Junior School, and returning to the west on paving flanked by the library, Moyes Building, CC Dangar House and AH Cash Building before passing the baton to their teammates.
Ultimately it was Ross House which crossed the line first in a time of 4 minutes 19 seconds – and what promises to be a new tradition at TAS, was born.
Click on the image below for a gallery of photos from the Great Cloisters Run 2015.
