Phillips heads south to go north

Whanganui aquathlon competitor Jazmin Phillips will be going the long way around to the ITU world championships in Canada this year as she departs for the University of Otago.

The 18-year-old has qualified again for this year's New Zealand team and will enter the aquathlon during the 2017 ITU World Triathlon Series when it is held in Edmonton, between mid July and late August.

Phillips finished seventh for the 16-19 Female grade in the 2016 event in Cozumel, Mexico.

In temperatures reaching over 30 degrees, she completed the run, swim and run event in 40 29s, around four minutes behind the winner in Great Britain's Natasha Sinha.
There were five Kiwi girls in the Top 10.

Before Edmonton, Phillips will begin taking a health science course in Dunedin.

She will have a familiar training partner down south because fellow Wanganui Collegiate national championship team mate Alice Bird, from Hunterville, is also attending the University of Otago.

An all around athlete, Phillips was with Bird and the Collegiate running team as they won four gold, six silver and one bronze medal in New Zealand road and cross country team races between 2012 and 2015.

In the water, Phillips claimed multiple gold medals at NZ Division 2 level in breastroke, as well as the first national secondary schools title by a Whanganui swimmer, in 2014.

Her busiest year was 2015 when she won national road and swimming titles, placed second in the 18-19 years national aquathlon championship - which qualified her for Mexico - and claimed bronze in both the national secondary school under 19 aquathlon and team triathlon

She was awarded the Morrison Cup as the top sports girl at Collegiate.

Phillips also had success as a representative in badminton and netball and was a winner of last year's Whanganui River bridge to bridge swim with the fastest time since 2011.

She is from a Whanganui sporting family as father Jeff Phillips was a Wanganui rugby representative and is now the WRFU chairman, while grandmother Yvonne was a long time representative hockey player and NZ Masters games medal winner.

Grandfather JB Phillips played a multitude of sports and was a successful sports journalist and administrator.