On Thursday 28 November our Sports Scholars, along with a number of the Lower School boys, enjoyed a wonderful talk from former pupil and coach of the Olympic winning Fijian Rugby 7s team, Chris Cracknell.
He titled his talk 'Shiplake Around the World and Back'. It was a brilliant and very inspiring talk, covering real resilience and genuine highs and lows from his rugby career as a player and as a coach. One of our pupils said of talk: "I felt so motivated from hearing Chris's story. It made me want to go training straight away. He was a true inspiration."
Chris, 35, left Shiplake in 2002 and went on to have a successful career as a rugby union player, playing for teams such as Harlequins, Exeter, Bath and Worcester. He had previously played for England at U19 and U21 level. He also represented England in the 7s squad, playing 146 matches for his country. His dream was to go the Olympics as part of the 7s rugby team, which he was in the running for. Sadly though, with still a few years until the Olympics were due to start, he had a career-ending injury which meant he could never play rugby professionally ever again. Chris knew he needed to find another route to the Olympics as he still really wanted to go. Fortunately enough, he got an offer to coach the Fijian rugby 7s team, which saw them go to the 2016 Olympics in Rio and take home the gold medal.
Chris told our pupils some incredible stories from his time in Fiji. Sadly not all his stories were happy, including the time a hurricane soared through Fiji which meant many of the players and their families lost their homes. But this didn't stop the players from staying focused for the world cup; they twisted this negative situation into a positive and used this to drive them on to achieve success, not just for themselves but for their families as well.
After their success at the Olympics, the team came home to a parade of people celebrating their achievement. As part of this, a picture of the team was printed on Fijian money, which included Chris. Chris was also awarded with the Officer of the Order of Fiji, the highest honour of the Fijian honours system.
Director of Sport, Mr Griffiths, had this to say about the talk:
"A remarkable talk and one which I know the boys loved and something I would absolutely love to hear again. We are also incredibly lucky that Chris has offered to come back next term and do some Sevens coaching with our boys and girls. A huge thank you to Chris for his time, expertise and enthusiasm. He also enjoyed watching the Winter Concert that same evening and was very impressed with the talent!"
