Racing anyway at the mount

MOUNT BOUND: Gisborne athlete Jack Keepa. The athletes will not race for points or medals, even in club colours this weekend, but some will still get to race for training and some of them in a teams competition at Mount Maunganui this weekend. File pictures

The district’s surf lifesaving competitors will get a chance to race at Mt Maunganui this weekend after all, despite the cancellation this week of the Eastern Regional Championships.

More than 1000 athletes, officials and supporters would have gathered for the champs — a number far higher than that allowed under red traffic-light rules.

Coaches from at least half a dozen eastern region clubs, and some outside the region, have got together to organise an interclub training day at the Mount tomorrow.

In addition, permission has been given for the Invitational Teams Event — which was to have been staged on Monday, after the ERC carnival — to proceed on Sunday.

Kaiaponi Farms Waikanae, Dawson Building Midway and Riversun Wainui will have athletes taking part in tomorrow’s training-day activities.

“We will run races from 8am till 10am tomorrow for the males, and then 11am till 1pm for the females,” a spokesman said.

“We have divided the training races across three venues — the Mount, Omanu and Papamoa — to spread everyone out to ensure we meet the 100-person gathering requirements.

“It was felt we had to put something on for the kids, who were going to miss out big-time this weekend because of the ERC cancellation.

“Who knows when we will be able to get them racing this season, because of Covid, so we have to grab any opportunity we can,” he said.

They will be involved in individual races tomorrow — the ski, board, swim and iron events.

The invitational at the Mount beach on Sunday will involve eight 12-person teams competing over a three-hour programme.

Among the athletes competing will be 10 of Gisborne’s best — Christy Tate, Lachie Falloon, Nathan Proctor, Chloe Kapene, Briana Irving, Oska Smith, Jack Keepa, Georgie Pitkethley and Seven Mapu, all from Waikanae, and Sophie Petro, from Midway.

All the Covid checks and balances will be in place both days — vaccine passport checks, contact trace log-ins and so on.

“Our Gisborne athletes would have done very well if the ERCs had been run this weekend,” the spokesman said.

“At least this way some of them will be given the chance of some very good competition.”

In addition to the athletes, Waikanae’s Michelle Mitchell is a team manager and Dion Williams, from Wainui, is an assistant coach of one of the teams.

The spokesman said the philosophy around this was the promotion of coach and manager development, where younger ones were paired up to be mentored by experienced coaches and managers.