School sports: Whanganui Girls' College wins WSS ISO Champs

Whanganui Girls' College can be proud for winning the most unique Whanganui Secondary School sports title in recent memory as the ISO Champs concluded on Sunday afternoon.

For the previous 42 days, students and teachers from seven local secondary schools have taken part in an internet-based physical activity competition organised by Sport Whanganui.

Isolated in their homes and bubbles by the Covid-19 lockdown, representatives from each school would log their daily training or activity routine, with proof provided by adding a picture or video.

The overall hours are added together for each school to find the most active.

Having embraced the challenge, Girls College took a big lead into the weekend over fellow girls school Nga Tawa Diocesan in Marton, while co-ed Cullinane College had closed up the gap slightly to third.

Those placings stayed the same over the last two days before students returned to school on Monday morning.

Sport Whanganui had hoped the competition would reach 1000 recorded hours of activity, but were still happy with the final total of 941 hours (56,460 minutes) by the 5pm Sunday deadline.

"Sport Whanganui were amazed at the level of engagement from both teachers and students during this time and we hope it filled a tiny gap in the need for a wee bit of competition we know many of you will be missing," said co-ordinator Clare Lynch.

They will come present the school with the WSS ISO Champs prize.

Another competition – the 'Battle of the Bubbles' for Whanganui's primary schools, which involved recording numbers of skips and jumps, will also conclude this week.