New Zealand Secondary Schools Athletics: Gold medal triumph for former couch-surfer Luis Douglas

Havelock North High School’s Luis Douglas, 19, with three gold medals and a silver from para-athlete triumphs at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Athletics Championships. Photo / Paul Taylor

Luis Douglas’ mum reckons that less than two years ago there wasn’t much at all that would get the teenager off the couch.

Then entered Havelock North High School physical education teacher Geoff Morrison, who believed the boy could run, and should even start competing.

The now 19-year-old never looked back - just like Forrest Gump.

At the New Zealand Secondary Schools Athletics Championships in Christchurch on December 8-10, he ran the 400m, the 800m, 1500m and the 2000m road race, and was one of the busiest individuals in the championships.

Quite the star of the school team, he won all but the 400m, which he ran in 1min 7.21sec.

Now a regular at Hastings Athletics Club, and trained by coach Jonathan Black, who Luis’ mum Benita Douglas said has “the patience of a saint”, he won the 800m in 2min 31.14sec, the 1500m in 5min 3.44, and the 2km road race in 7min 9.52sec.

Douglas is a para athlete with cognitive impairment/disability who’s packed a lot into those two years. He won the 1500m and road race last year and claimed the national secondary schools’ cross-country championships back-to-back in his category in 2022 and 2023, each over 6km and the second of which made him the Disabled Sportsperson of the Year at the 2023 Hawke’s Bay Secondary Schools Sports Awards.

But, wait, there’s more. Douglas, who runs two nights a week with trainer Andy McCrory’s community running group, was out doing the next stage in qualification for a Duke of Edinburgh Award gold badge. He has recently done courses with Outward Bound and the Spirit of Adventure sailing trust, and at school he’s also been busy getting his NCEA credits.

Mum Benita says that until the intervention of the teacher’s intuition Douglas did not have the confidence to get involved, and had struggled with feeling left-out since the family moved back to New Zealand from the United States when he was 12-years-old.

There’s always been a bit of sport around the family of Benita and Anton Douglas, but for Luis much of it was spent following the pursuits of younger siblings - Harriet, a 17-year-old at Whanganui Collegiate, and Monte, 14, at Lindisfarne College, Hastings.

He just wanted to take part and, his mum says, dreamed of “going away” with a sports team. That opportunity came last year when he was able to go away with his sister’s team to the cross-country championships last year.

“When he signed up for cross-country he took off like a rocket,” she said. “Luis loves to run. He likes to be around lots of kids, and competing brings the best out of him. He functions so much better with exercise.”

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 50 years of journalism experience in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.