Weighn attending Steven Adams' basketball camp

Weighn Wilson is going to the Steven Adams Basketball Camp in Auckland this week. Picture by Paul Rickard

THIRTEEN-year-old Gisborne schoolboy Weighn Wilson was born with no fingers on his left hand but he will try most sports, and this week he will attend a Steven Adams Basketball Camp for players aged eight to 17.

Weighn and his mother, Harriet (“call me Peips”) Peipi, fly to Auckland tomorrow afternoon for the one-day camp at Takanini on Thursday.

Weighn was nominated for the Meadowfresh-sponsored basketball camp by Vania Ria.

Vania’s son Ngaru and Weighn have been teammates for four years in the basketball team Peips coaches.

In her nomination, Vania said Weighn had never let his impairment hold him back and he epitomised the values of sportsmanship and dedication in his favourite sport, basketball.

Peips said the flights, accommodation and food for the trip were being covered by the event sponsors.

The Auckland event is one of three Steven Adams basketball camps. The others are in Palmerston North on Sunday and in Dunedin on Wednesday next week.

While basketball is Weighn’s favourite sport, he enjoys taking part in a wide range of codes. He competed in the Halberg Junior Disability Games in Auckland in October last year and was asked to register his sporting interests on the Para New Zealand database. He nominated swimming and athletics (he received the award for top boy in athletics and won several swimming events at the Games).

His mother said Weighn came home from the Games fired with enthusiasm and keen to take part the following year.

At the start of this year, Peips received an email message asking if Weighn wanted to take part in a cycling camp in Tauranga — last year he did a triathlon programme with John Scott and Kate Ney of the Eastland Triathlon & Multisport Club — but he was unable to attend because he was in the Gisborne Basketball Association under-15 squad.

“Then they emailed me about a Para New Zealand swimming development camp in Rotorua in May, for which we were available,” Peips said.

Those at the camp were coached by former Olympic and Commonwealth Games swimmer Daniel Bell in sessions at the Rotorua Aquatic Centre.

Peips, a swimming instructor with Comet Swim Club in Gisborne, helped out at the camp as an assistant learn-to-swim coach.

“Weighn has been a Comet swimmer since he was five,” Peips said.

She was his first coach, having been a pool lifeguard at the Olympic Pool in 2006, ’07 and ’08 when Weighn was a baby. She started instructing in 2011.

Before Weighn learned to swim, Peips had already got his siblings into swimming. The death of a relative by drowning reinforced her belief that it was important for them to be confident in water.

Weighn has four brothers, three sisters and four stepbrothers. Weighn and six siblings are still at home, so he is not lacking company.

But he would love to take part in more sport, and paralympic sport offers the opportunity to compete at a high level.

After his time at the Para New Zealand swimming development camp, Weighn was inspired most by those who had little or no use of their legs but whose swimming was just as strong as his.

“He couldn’t stop talking about them,” Peips said.

“He’d had a term away from swimming because it clashed with other sports he was doing, but after the camp he asked if he could go back.”

Those other sports?

He used to play rugby as a halfback or second five-eighth but he’s changed to football, where he’s a striker.

He also plays basketball, tennis and badminton, and watch out for him in the triathlon.