Te Arawa Games: Ngati Rangitihi top of tribes

Ngati Rangitihi has won the Te Arawa Games - for the second time in a row.

They beat 12 other Te Arawa tribes to take the top award competing in more than 13 sports including touch, netball, table tennis, basketball, squash and the traditional Maori game of ki-o-rahi.

More than 1000 people took part in the four-day games which were run at Rotorua Lakes High School.

Te Papa Takaro o Te Arawa general manager Paora Te Hurihanganui said the games went really well.

"It was heaps bigger with double the participants and quadruple the number of spectators. In my experience this has been the best games we've had."

He was impressed with the win by Ngati Rangitihi who he said were extremely well organised.

"They hire buses, use texts, Facebook, emails and whatever to get their teams organised and to the games."

Mr Te Hurihanganui said the aim of the games was to strengthen the ties between tribal members and their marae.

"The games are about strengthening our marae using sport as a vehicle ... Getting the young ones connecting to their marae in a positive fun way."

Mr Te Hurihanganui said he was blown away by the response by rangatahi.

Participation was also an important factor and Mr Te Hurihanganui said iwi had to field a whanau team before they could field a competitive side.

"The whanau teams had koeke [adults], young children and adults playing."

T he X-factor was extremely popular with no shortage of participants getting up to dance and sing. Another addition was the speech competition with the topic being "What does it mean to be Te Arawa?"

There was plenty of traffic on Ngati Rangitihi's Facebook page with a big shout out to their organiser Donna Semmens for her tiresome work in "arranging teams, re-arranging teams, and re-re-arranging teams".

Ngati Rangiwewehi was second, Waitaha from Te Puke third, Ngati Kearoa Ngati Tuara fourth and Ngati Rongomai fifth.