NZ’s Future Sporting Elite
Home-grown Wakatipu High School Sports stars cleaning up
Wakatipu High School is becoming a sporting force to be reckoned with on land, water and ice with some of its summer sporting greats clocking up some very impressive successes, nationally and at South Island and regional meets last week and throughout the season.
The school had 110 students competing among tens of thousands around the country in Summer Tournament Week last week – its largest ever group, despite Covid interruptions last year.
School Director of Sport Laura Nathan says they’re elated with the results and now starting to see the hard work and training paying off in what has been an “incredibly successful” week for the school. It’s the highest number of students we’ve had competing over the largest range of events – everything from rowing, volleyball and touch, to athletics, mountain biking and golf, with many of our athletes doing exceptionally well on the national, South Island and regional stage,” says an elated Laura. “We’re incredibly proud of the achievements of our students and coaches. It’s great to cap off the summer season in such an awesome way - super pleasing.”
WHS took out three golds, two silvers and two bronze medals at the prestigious Maadi Cup - NZ Secondary School Rowing Championships which finished at the weekend (April 1). WHS finished an incredible third equal overall among 2287 students competing at Lake Karapiro, Cambridge.
For the second year running WHS was awarded the Top Sculling School’s Trophy with its rowers producing another blinder in the A finals. “We had 25 students compete at Maadi this year and crews made 12 A finals and six B finals – another awesome campaign,” she says.
Marley King Smith won two golds and a bronze, Xavier Small – two golds, a silver and bronze, and Ashton White won a gold, a silver and bronze, among the school’s successes.
“We were second equal overall last year and this year third overall nationally which is very impressive out of 113 schools,” says Laura. “This is the top national event – the best in the country. As a school we take a huge amount of pride in providing kids opportunities to compete, but seeing them perform is incredibly heartening.”
The school’s mountain bikers also took out three firsts, three seconds and a third at Coronet Peak at the weekend in the South Island Mountain Bike Championships. One of the winners, Malik Boatwright, was first in the National U15 Boys Downhilll Series last season.
The WHS Athletics team is starting to turn heads too with Siena Mackley winning gold in the U18 Girls 3000m at the NZ Athletics Club Championships recently. She backed this up with gold in the 3000m and 1500m at the South Island Secondary School Athletics Championships at the weekend, where Sammy Fookes also won the U19 Girls 800m.
The school’s U14 Triathlon Team took out national gold last week too at the NZ Secondary Schools Triathlon Championships in Wanaka, while the school’s First XI Girls’ Cricket Team finished third in the Gillette Venus Cup as regional qualifiers.
In another coup for WHS sporting success, Year 12 student Mason Clarke has just been named in the U19 Men’s NZ Cricket Squad, which Laura says is an “incredible achievement”.
“Mason has a number of camps to attend during the upcoming months as part of a build up to a tournament in Darwin later this year which serves as qualification for the ICC U19 World Cup in 2024.”
Mason and Year 11 student Hugo Bogue were both honoured in Dunedin recently at the Otago Cricket Awards for their awesome season. Hugo was named U17 Boys Batter of the Year and Mason the U17 Boys Bowler of the Year award.
Students Lachy Boniface and Joel Gerard also both won gold as part of the NZ U18 Men’s Ice Hockey Team competing in South Africa recently with NZ taking out the Division III Group B tournament.
Hot on the heels of stunning recent success at the Otago Intercollegiate Champs in Cromwell where the school’s golfers took the top five spots, the school’s top golf team of Nico Cheifetz, Su Kang and Yoonae Jeong won the Southland Secondary School Golf Champs last week. They’ve now qualified for the National Secondary School Championships in August.
Student Kai Milburn is also Number 1 ranked U16 tennis player in NZ with his two younger brothers both ranked second – Dan in the U15 and Noa in the U14.
