“The final day of competition was always going to be tough for us, we knew that,” said Waikanae club coach Cory Hutchings.
“In the end, we couldn’t quite hang on to second place but we still achieved our goal of a top-three finish.
“I am very proud of our kids. To see all their smiling faces is what’s really pleasing.”
Waikanae only fielded eight senior competitors. The rest were aged under 19.
“We have a fantastic management group and we couldn’t have achieved what we did without them,” said team manager Michelle Mitchell.
Cory Taylor, Matt Scott and Oliver PuddickMidway’s Cory Taylor realised a major personal ambition yesterday when he bolted away to win the blue riband open men’s ironman title.
Taylor, clubmate Matt Scott and former Wainui lifeguard Oliver Puddick, now with the Mount, shared the lead after the ski leg.
Defending champion Taylor worked his way into the lead in the swim leg, and then finished with a determined board paddle on which he caught a fine wave home to win by at least 150 metres.
“I’m relieved more than anything to finally win the open ironman on my home beach.
“I’ve lived much of my life about 200 metres away from here.”
The margin of victory was not important to him.
“An inch or a mile, it doesn’t matter. I’m just so happy to win at home.”
Loud applause rang out across the beach as he headed for the finish line.
Clubmate Scott crossed in second place and Puddick third.
“I was shocked to be honest. I was not expecting that to happen,” said Scott, who has been specialising in open water swimming “I’ve done no iron training and have only been on a ski two or three times in the past two years. It feels great.”
Taylor pocketed more than half-a-dozen silver and several bronze medals over the three days in individual and team events.
Midway coach Matt Sutton was rapt with his club’s final day.
“I feel we did well with the number of competitors we had. It feels like we have a platform to build on for the future, especially with the crop of under-14s we have coming through.”
Waikanae scored a lot of their points in the ski, canoe and beach arenas.
The silver medal won by their under-19 women’s canoe team of Ella McBreen, Charli Blackburne, Genna Robertson and Stacey Warren-Moiser was one of their more memorable successes.
The crew, made up of 14-15-year-olds, was full of joy at their efforts.
“That was the best race of our lives,” one of them said. “We are so proud to win a medal.”
Gisborne canoe teams race with true gritAll Gisborne canoe crews raced with true grit in Saturday’s extremely testing choppy, onshore swells of up to two metres.
Wainui finished the championships on a high late yesterday afternoon with a gold medal to Jasmine Smith and Abby Falwasser-Logan in the open women’s board rescue.
“It’s pretty funny really. Abby and I are normally pretty bad in board rescue but we worked well together today,” Smith said.
The club’s under-16s had a good day, too, with gold to Ava Smith in the board race, and gold to Ava, sister Stella and Saffi Vette in the board relay, which one of them described as feeling “pretty damn good”.
Wainui coach Dion Williams said his crew “absolutely loved being out in the big waves”.
“They loved the challenge and I’m really proud of them all, our supporters too, and congratulations to the other clubs for the way they went.”
'An extremely successful nationals - thanks Gisborne'Surf Lifesaving NZ event manager Scott Bicknell said it was an extremely successful nationals.
“We got through the programme of events for the athletes, despite the sizeable seas that presented a tough challenge.
“But then that’s what they came here for — a challenge.
“It has been fantastic to be back in Gisborne,” he said. “The local support has been awesome and all of the teams have been commenting on how welcome they’ve felt here.
“Thanks Gisborne.”
