Athletics Insight: Whanganui clubs celebrate history while making changes for positive future

Anna Grimaldi celebrates winning gold in the women's 200m T47 final at the Paris Paralympic Games. Photo / Getty Images

Exactly 23 years ago I wrote my first Insight article after returning from Melbourne as an excited spectator at the IAAF World Finals.

The finals have become today’s Diamond League with this year’s final to be held in Brussels at the weekend.

As I write this week’s article, I reflect that milestones and anniversaries are important and a cause for celebration. Next year sees the centenary of Whanganui Harrier Club, a great cause for celebration with planning well under way. Two years later the Wanganui Athletics Club celebrates its sesquicentennial (150 years), having been founded in 1877, and remains the second oldest athletics club in existence in New Zealand.

Although looking back is important, and the rich past will be celebrated in style by the clubs, there also have been positive moves looking forward to the sporting future for both clubs. Athletes are at the centre of that future as the clubs move closer together. The demanding workload of volunteers, with considerable duplication under the present structure, will also benefit from this future.

My first memory of discussion on this topic goes back to 1981 (43 years ago). I can pinpoint the actual day because on that Saturday (July 25) the New Zealand Cross Country Championships were held on the old Mosston course, and I was one of the many officials drawn from both Wanganui Harrier Club and the Wanganui Athletic and Cycling Club. It was also the day of the infamous Springbok rugby tour match with Waikato, which was abandoned. The tour and the match were obvious topics of conversation of officials between races. Also discussed was how good it would be if the winter and summer clubs could come together to share resources.

The Mosston conversations became the catalyst for further discussions which led to the first more formal proposal of combining the two clubs. This proposal had looked very promising but was rejected at a subsequent annual general meeting. This rejection did not end the discussion and some years later the merger was all but completed, only to again fall to the final AGM hurdle.

There has always been agreement that joining together has considerable benefits in terms of sharing the workload and resources of the winter and summer branches of the sport in which the clubs have so much in common. It is these common factors and the need to best utilise the hard work of volunteers that has led to the joining of winter clubs in other parts of New Zealand, including within our centre in Palmerston North which merged before the millennium, and much more recently a successful merger in Feilding. Similar joining of clubs has successfully occurred in other regions of New Zealand.

Huge local progress has been made with the agreement that the two clubs should come together which has been adopted at their AGMs. Already we have one point of registration for membership in the sport and athletes compete as Whanganui in major events, avoiding having to transfer at the change of season. The exciting development programme, started in the winter at Victoria Park with Paula Conder, will continue under Conder with the revival of the children’s section of athletics on Monday afternoons from 4.30pm, starting on October 14. Conder and Jodie Brunger from Sport Whanganui organised a parent coaching session at the Whanganui Harrier Club Rooms at Victoria Park on Monday this week.

The Olympic Games, and more recently with the Paralympics culminating in flag bearer Anna Grimaldi’s exciting if unexpected gold in the T47 200m, will hopefully inspire our young, old and disabled to participate and grasp the opportunities the sport provides.

The senior season starts on Tuesday, October 15, the day after the start of the rejuvenated children’s section. There will be an additional session for 10–14-year-olds on Thursdays, starting that same week.

I will highlight the season in next week’s Insight, including our new C programme held at regular intervals through the season which adds a coaching slot for our younger athletes at 6.15pm and some children’s events attached early in the evening to the traditional C programme.

The two traditional clubs look forward to celebrating their significant milestones and sharing resources and initiatives while retaining their rich history.

There has already been a positive start, with registration now through one entry portal with clear links on both club websites avoiding confusion and athletes requiring to transfer or to reregister.

Hopefully, we can finally achieve a coming together of the two historic clubs as a central part of the Wanganui Harrier Club centenary and a prelude to the Athletics Club sesqui in 2027.