Kayla “Kay.os” Mitchell (L) and her sister Phoebe "Phearless" Mitchell, both in white, compete at the Junior Roller Derby World Cup in Brisbane.
Kayla “Kay.os” Mitchell (L) and her sister Phoebe "Phearless" Mitchell, both in white, compete at the Junior Roller Derby World Cup in Brisbane.
Some sisters are at each other’s necks, but a pair from Woodford House know they have each other’s backs on the roller derby track.
Kayla Mitchell aka “Kay.os”, 17, and Phoebe Mitchell aka “Phearless”, 16, have returned to Hawke’s Bay after representing New Zealand in the female division at theJunior Roller Derby World Cup in Brisbane.
The sisters were joined by fellow Hawke’s Bay roller kids Chloe Wilson aka “Scarface Claw”, Jane Skyrme aka “Whiskers”, and Kya Boerman aka “Dynamite”.
Roller derby features two teams of five skaters, with one jammer (point scorer) and four blockers.
The jammer tries to pass the opposing blockers, scoring points for each opponent passed, while blockers work to impede the opposing jammer while assisting their own.
Both Mitchell sisters are jammers.
The Roller Derby Junior World Cup is a biennial event.
This year’s competition was Kayla’s second, after competing in France in 2023, and Phoebe’s first.
The New Zealand team’s first match was against Denmark. Kiwi tenacity on the track proved too much for the Danes, who went down 28 to 149.
Next up was Mexico, where the Kiwis skated away with another win, 84 points to 49.
But then came the big dog of roller derby, the United States, who took the Kiwi girls to task, 167 to 62.
The team would go on to lose to Sweden 124 to 86 before bouncing back against Australia, winning 113 to 96, before another heavy loss to the US, the eventual tournament champions, 426 to 97.
Thanks to their three wins, the Kiwis managed to sneak into the bronze medal final where they would meet Australia.
“The whole game, they were like slightly ahead, but we were definitely really close, just trailing behind them, and then it just came down to that last jam,” Phoebe said.
A jam in roller derby is a period of gameplay that lasts up to two minutes where the teams compete to score points.
“There’s a lot of rules, so it’s kind of hard to explain,” laughed Phoebe.
Unfortunately, the New Zealand team just missed out on the bronze medal, going down 211 to 213.
Phoebe "Phearless" Mitchell (L) and sister Kayla “Kay.os” Mitchell at Woodford House. Photo / Jack Riddell
“But it was such a good game,” said Kayla.
“We were all bawling our eyes at the end.
“It wasn’t even just because we lost, it was because we were so exhausted and we worked so hard.”
Both sisters said they were extremely proud of their team for the results and opportunities they had while skating in Australia.
Up next, Kayla is looking forward to finishing high school and heading to university to study sports psychology or communication, and is looking at becoming a coach on the junior world cup team.
Phoebe is eyeing up a return to the junior world cup team in two years, and is looking forward to potentially studying optometry after leaving high school.
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier.
