City athletes top Tahiti team

Wanganui will be well-represented at the Oceania Aero Athletics Championships in Tahiti over the next week, a tenth of the 51-strong Kiwi team having strong ties to the River City.

Wanganui Collegiate students and talented athletes William Smart, Caleb Bensemann and Jessica Brougham are in the New Zealand team, along with former Collegians Tom Symes and William Cowper, now studying at AUT in Auckland. Former Wanganui High School and Collegiate physiotherapist Melissa Gilbertson will also be on board the plane that flies out to Tahiti tomorrow.

The New Zealand 200m champion, Smart will compete in the senior grade over 100m and his favoured 200m, but will also be part of the 4x100m and 4x400m relays team. He has had an outstanding season.

Coach Alec McNab said Smart's first New Zealand singlet had been well-earned. "He suffered a minor hamstring injury at the North Island Secondary Schools, the final meeting of the summer. He convincingly won the 100m, but struggled in the 200m. The enforced break following that meet has probably helped him and his training on Sunday suggests he's very close to his impressive best," McNab said yesterday.

Collegiate athletics team captain Bensemann takes on the Youth Grade long and triple jump competition in Tahiti.

He has combined winter track and field training with 1st XV rugby for his school.

McNab said Bensemann's strength and speed had improved since the summer, when he won silver medals at both the New Zealand Schools and North Island championships.

Brougham will compete in the discus and shot put youth events in Tahiti, and she is another who has combined two sporting codes. Brougham took a silver and a bronze in the shot put and discus respectively at the NZ Secondary Schools meet, and gained a trial for the New Zealand rowing team on the strength of the success of her Collegiate crew in the summer.

Symes will compete in the 400m and will join former Collegiate teammate Smart in the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, while Cowper has been selected for the long and triple jump and is a likely candidate for the relays.

"He has good relay credentials," McNab said.

Meanwhile, a last-minute farewell breakfast for the Collegiate trio yesterday morning attracted 270 supporters raising much-needed spending money for the island trip.