Skating: Hawke's Bay trio among medal winners at Oceania Championships

Hawke's Bay's three medal winners at the recent Oceania champs, Nina Coe (front), Rox Price (left) and Sharon McRae. Photo / Paul Taylor

It was Hawke's Bay skater Nina Coe's first Oceania Championships so naturally her expectations weren't high.

"I wasn't expecting to place ... some top-five finishes if I was lucky," the 14-year-old Napier Girls' High School Year 9 student said as she reflected on the recent Rotorua-hosted champs.

The cadet grade competitor won her 15-strong solo dance division, her six-strong figures division and returned home with the Jim Taylor Trophy for the best skater in her age group.

"All the work I put in with my coaches paid off," Coe said, referring to her coaching staff, Aucklanders Bev Cooper and Rachael Parkinson-Turner and Palmerston North's Kylie Shirley.

However, dig into Coe's skating background and several factors suggest she was always going to bring home a decent chunk of the silverware if she performed to her potential.

The determined teen is in her 11th year of skating, has excelled at national level and has tremendous family support.

Before becoming a boarder at NGHS this year, family members would make the 80-minute return trip from her Central Hawke's Bay home for training three times a week at her club's Rodney Green Events Centre base in Napier.

After the 2017 nationals in Rotorua, Coe returned home with four gold medals.

Next year she intends to strut her stuff at the New Plymouth-hosted nationals in July and the May regionals in Palmerston North.

Coe was one of three Hawke's Bay medal winners in Rotorua.

Porritt School teacher Sharon McRae, who took up the sport in 2010, won the masters figures title. There were four skaters in her division and this was the second time she had won the title at Oceania level.

"It was scary but good," McRae said.

The Vilma Fanthorpe-coached McRae is also no stranger to winning national titles and intends to tackle next year's regional and national championships.

Forest Management New Zealand administrator Rox Price was second in advanced masters figures at her second Oceania championships.

"I've had two seconds in different grades at the Oceania champs now. In 2016 I was second to Sharon [McRae] in her grade," Price recalled.

The fourth-year skater was one of 11 in her division.

"I didn't know what to expect from the Australians but I ended up being beaten by another Kiwi," Price said, referring to Diane Gunson, of Hamilton.

"Diane is a really seasoned professional. She competed at world championship level when she was a youngster," Price recalled.

Like McRae and Coe, Price said she wouldn't have achieved her podium finish without regular training sessions. Price is coached by Skate Hawke's Bay stalwart Bill Hancock, who last year was awarded life membership to the national body in recognition of his then 50 years service to the sport.