ByBrian Sacks, Brian Sacks
Rebecca Hurley has won the borough-wide Welwyn and Hatfield School Pupil of the Year Award 2015, to add to the ever-growing trophy collection of a remarkable sporting family.
Rebecca, 16, and her siblings Jessica, 15, and Greg, 14, are unusually talented in several sports, while their mother Colette is a national standard middle-distance runner. Proud husband and father Philip, himself a fine sportsman, tragically died last year.
Rebecca and Jessica both compete over sprints and middle distances for Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers, under the guidance of coach Jeremy Sothcott.
Both girls are sports scholars at Queenswood School in Hertfordshire, where Rebecca also won the Sports Scholar Ambassador Award last year.
Of her latest award, Rebecca explained: "I was nominated by my school for services and achievements in sport.
These included representing Herts in cross-country in the National Inter-Counties and the English Schools championships and helping the school to win the County hockey championship.”
Jessica, like her sister, has attained county standard in each of gymnastics, hockey, swimming and cross-country. Particularly strong over the 300m track distance, Jessica is the U15 Herts County champion and record-holder as well as Shaftesbury Barnet U15 record-holder. Her ambition is to compete at the English Schools’ track and field championships.
Greg also competes for Shaftesbury Barnet, his events including sprints, javelin and cross-country. The St Albans School pupil also enjoys football, cricket, rugby, tennis and swimming. Some years ago, he won the Herts U9 25m freestyle championship.
But he admits: “My favourite sport is golf. I won the Herts County U14 championship and the Bishops Stortford Junior Open 2013, and my big ambition is to become a professional golfer.”
Like her children, PE teacher Colette is deeply committed to athletics, as both a competitor and a mentor.
As a senior, she represented Hertfordshire many times and competed in qualifying championships for World, Olympic, European and Commonwealth Games as well as in two Maccabiah Games. Her lifetime best 800m was 2:08.6.
She was the UK top-ranked V40 Master over 400m in 2005 and was British Masters 400m indoor
champion, as well as placing third in the European Masters and eighth in the World Masters indoor championships. She is now the U17 and U20 Shaftesbury Barnet Women’s team manager for the Youth Development League.
"I came back into competitive athletics last year and reached a UK V50 ranking of seventh for 400m," she says.
"I am still with my coach Bryan Smith, with whom I have been training since I was nine years old. I can’t thank him enough for all his support over the years.” Three weeks ago, almost every pupil of Queenswood School participated in the inaugural Hurley Cup for inter-house cross-country, instituted in memory of Philip and
Rebecca and Jessica set the fastest times.
Colette says: “Phil was an extremely proud father and husband and went to watch us at as many sports events as possible. In his teens he was a national swimmer and was ranked second in the UK for U17 butterfly. He was an ardent golfer and during his lifetime he achieved a handicap of 5.7. He was waiting for Greg to dip below this – but it was something that Greg achieved soon after Phil died."