Female secondary schools' sportsperson of the year Bobbi Gichard (left) and Olivia Tilyard, who collected trophies on behalf of male and overall winner Regan Gough last night.
Female secondary schools' sportsperson of the year Bobbi Gichard (left) and Olivia Tilyard, who collected trophies on behalf of male and overall winner Regan Gough last night.
Despite a gruelling 178km ride at the first stage of the annual Tour of Southland in Invercargill yesterday world champion cyclist Regan Gough would have had no qualms about attending the Hawke's Bay Secondary Schools Sportsperson of the Year Award in Napier.
Instead, Gough had fellow Central Hawke's Bay Collegepupil, friend and netball nominee Olivia Tilyard performing the honours on his behalf last night.
"It's bad timing for me because I'll be missing the CHB Awards on Friday, too," said the 18-year-old after becoming the the first back-to-back winner of the secondary schools' supreme award at the Westpac-sponsored function.
"I'd love to have been there but I suppose I can't be everywhere," said Gough who was earlier awarded the EIT male award at the Museum Theatre Gallery in Napier where friends, teachers and family attended, including his parents, Penny and Dean Gough, of Waipukurau.
"I also had my school principal, Lance Christiansen, and other school nominees there on my behalf," said the year 13 pupil after a good massage before competing in the second stage of the tour with his team, H&J Outdoor World (Southland) today.
The double awards last night come on the heels of Gough's success at the junior world championship in South Korea in August when he claimed two golds, a silver and a bronze.
Overall winner Regan Gough.
Gough won gold in the 120-lap Madison - with CHB-born cyclist now living in Palmerston North, Luke Mudgway - gold in the points race, silver in the individual pursuit and bronze in the team pursuit.
Last year he received the CHB Junior Sportsperson of the Year Award.
Yesterday, Gough was in 17th place in the opening stage of the cycling tour, 50 seconds behind winner Ben Hill, of Australia.
His cousin, Fraser Gough (Kia Motors-Ascot Park), of Havelock North, also was 50s off the pace but 12s ahead of him in the overall standings.
"We're not far behind so we should make some ground with the others," Regan Gough said after teammates Luke MacPherson and Nick Kergozou encountered punctured tyres.
Yesterday's grind, he said was "pretty brutal".
"I've got strep throat so I'm on antibiotics and not feeling 100 per cent," he said, after a typically windy Southland day.
He was in a group of 30 riders, behind the four leaders, and ahead of the peloton making the rest of a field of 108 starters.
In the next couple of days he will know what his portfolio will be in the team.
"My position will depend on what's best for the team. I could become a rider working for someone else."
Resting to shake off the virus isn't his only priority while competing.
"I have exams starting next week so I'm trying to do a little bit of swotting between the races, too," he says before today's 140km grind that will end up at Bluff Hill, south of Invercargill.
In the team time-trial, Gough was "a respectable sixth" on Sunday.
Napier Girls' High School swimmer Bobbi Gichard won the Shoe Clinic female award in the wake of her 100m backstroke bronze medal at the Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China, in August.
Another NGHS swimmer, Kate McKelvie, became the inaugural winner of the Snapp Mobile Disabled Sportsperson of the Year award. In May she attended a Paralympic Talent ID Camp in Auckland.
McKelvie won a silver medal in the 100m freestyle at the national short-course championship and two golds and two silvers at the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Championship.
Ex-Black Stick Caryn Paewai, a guest speaker last night, won the Furnware New Zealand coach award after mentoring national girls' reps to fifth place at the Youth Olympics.
Bay-based, most-capped female Black Sticks player Emily Naylor, of Kereru, was also a guest speaker.
