South Wairarapa youngsters Emma Phelps and Millie Bidwell were among the medal-winners at the New Zealand rowing championships last weekend.
Phelps, 17, was in the Wanganui Collegiate School crew which picked up the bronze medal in the women's under-19 coxed fours in an exciting finish at Lake Karapiro. They held off the eventual fourth placegetters by just 0.1 seconds.
The Wanganui Collegiate squad had themselves just been pipped out of a medal spot in a photo finish at the national secondary schools championships (Maadi Cup) last year, so were delighted to have gone one better on this occasion.
That, however, was only the start of the good news for Phelps who later was part of the Wanganui Collegiate silver medal winning team in the women's under-21 eights event. And also in that line-up was Bidwell, 16, who is making an excellent fist of her first year in the eights.
Phelps, a national under-18 secondary schools triallist last year, is a former pupil of Hadlow School and then St Matthew's Collegiate whose family home is between Greytown and Martinborough. Bidwell, a former Kahutara School and St Matthew's Collegiate pupil, has Kahutara as her home address.