Former KGGS student Shona McCallin has added to her collection of gold medals.
It follows her England women’s hockey team’s Commonwealth Games victory, for the first time with a 2-1 victory over Australia.
Holly Hunt’s superb strike opened the scoring for England, before Tess Howard deflected in a second minutes later.
Australia scored a consolation strike with 19 seconds remaining but were unable to silence the packed crowd.
England had won a medal at every Commonwealth Games since hockey was added to the programme in 1998 – but never gold. They won hockey bronze on the Gold Coast four years ago
Grantham-born Shona was brought up in Dry Doddington and went to Long Bennington Primary School.
It was while there, as a six-year-old, her mother took her to junior sessions at Newark Hockey Club to burn up some of her surplus energy.
From there she went to KGGS and after taking her GCSEs moved to Repton in Derbyshire to complete her A Levels.
Before going to the next level she took a gap year in Holland, playing semi-professional hockey.
In 2007, Shona made her International debut on England’s U16 squad and ultimately was named captain of the England and GB U-21 teams.
She was an ever-present member of the gold-medal winning Rio Olympics team which won all eight matches, beating the Nederlands in the final.
But dreams of her first Commonwealth Games and first World Cup in 2018 turned into a nightmare. Struck by a ball in play, concussion ruled her out of the Commonwealth Games and then the World Cup.
Shona made a successful return to international hockey in mid-2019 and used her experience, excellent reading of the game and tenacity in midfield to guide GB to Tokyo 2020 bronze.
Yersterday, Shona also received a blood blister on her lip, following a collision with an Australian stick.
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