Volleyball: Chilly winter buildup for Youth Olympics duo

When the Summer Youth Olympics begin in Nanjing, China, on August 16, two Bay of Plenty students will take on the world's best beach volleyballers without the same build-up as their opponents.

Nate Moore and Kahurangi Robinson have spent every weekend since April practising in all weathers on Mount Main Beach, to prepare for expected mid-30 degrees in China.

Welcome to the reality of representing your country in a sport not deemed worthy of funding by the powers that be at Sport New Zealand.

New Zealand beach volleyball coach Darrell Boyd, who is head of sports at Tauranga Boys' College and will accompany the boys to China, says they are the only team that does not have a warm environment to train in.

"At the moment the under-19 world championships are on in Portugal and that is where most of the teams are," Boyd said.

"We don't have the funding to do two trips a year. We had to pay to get to Thailand to qualify and then pay again to go to Nanjing. We don't have a spare 7K to go to Portugal.

"It is phenomenal what we achieve. The best we have achieved is fifth at a world championship event. We are realistic but it is going to come down to the draw and also the environment, because it is the whole Olympic village scenario. Our goal is to have fun because they play the best when they are having fun."

Moore, from Mount Maunganui College, says key learnings from qualifying in Thailand back in April will help them in China.

"The big thing in Thailand was we learned how much food and water that really mattered to perform," Moore said.

"We have been working on blocking mostly, as we came up against some really big hitters there. We can both play front and back court so having that opportunity to swap around and save some energy is important."

Western Heights High School student Robinson has only been in the beach volleyball programme for two years. He has succeeded in multiple sports and set a remarkable standing vertical leap record of 81cm at a nationwide AFL talent camp.

Robinson has spent every weekend staying with the Moore family, from Friday night to Monday morning, and training at the Mount since April.

He says what drives him "is just a love of volleyball really and to do well with Nate.

"Once we went to Thailand we thought we may have a chance to make the Youth Olympics, so we just went hard at that. Now it is a big opportunity and I still can't believe it actually."