Cooks Classic kicks off busy year

ANCHORMAN: Max Attwell ran the anchor leg for Wanganui Collegiate's winning 4x100m relay team at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships at Cooks Gardens last month.PHOTO/SUPPLIED

NEW Year is a time to reflect and look forward to the year ahead. In the past fortnight, setting up a new office, I was forced to look back on more than just 2014.

In one box, I found past Insight articles and was shocked to realise I wrote the first at the start of September 2001 - that's more than 500 articles over the past 13 years and 4 months.

The 2014 Athletics Wanganui year started with a successful Cooks Classic in January and ended with hosting the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships in December, with a large number of athletic activities between the two.

In fact, Cooks Gardens was the venue for almost 50 athletics meetings, ranging from national to club and local primary and secondary school events, giving our ratepayers access to a valued facility the envy of communities throughout New Zealand.

Returning to the New Zealand Schools Championships, I was a little surprised the Wanganui Chronicle review of the year made no mention of it in the page on December. How many other events bring 1500 competitors and many more supporters to Wanganui, occupying virtually all our accommodation, and how many events have there been in which Wanganui won six national titles?

2015 is upon us, with Tuesday club nights resuming next week at 7pm. Club nights provide a great opportunity for athletes of all ages and abilities to participate and I especially recommend athletes intending to compete at the New Zealand Masters Games at the end of the month grasp the opportunity.

Our first athletes in action are the children attending the annual North Island Colgate Games in Wellington. It is pleasing that Wanganui have 18 athletes attending, a huge increase on the three of last year.

This is a reflection on the hard work of Paula Conder, Mannie Marara and Heather Mackenzie who have helped provide a more vibrant and active children's section. It is also a reflection of the wise move to Monday evening for children's club night and the incorporation of the older children with the younger secondary age children in the Tuesday evening programmes.

An especially pleasing aspect is the fact that Wanganui relay teams are again competing at Colgate. I am attending as an official and hope to be reporting back on Wanganui successes next week.

Our first major home meeting is the annual Cooks Classic on Tuesday, January 20. I will refer to this meeting in detail next week. There will be quality athletes competing, especially in field events with the inclusion of leading Australians who are competing in the 'Jump to Music' in Hawera the previous Friday.

Another feature of the meeting is the New Zealand under-20 men's and women's 3000m championships that should see Geordie Beamish return to Cooks Gardens in search of another national title.

The Classic is part of the three Classic meetings over the week: The Sylvia Potts Classic in Hastings on Saturday, January 17, the Cooks Classic on the 20th and the Capital Classic on Friday, January 23.

Part of the Cooks Classic will again be 'The Fastest Kid on the Block' (FYOB), which gives the opportunity for children to be part of the major event.

The preliminaries will be at Springvale Park on Tuesday, January 13, and at Wanganui East (William Domain) on Thursday, January 15. Both events will be at noon and are qualifying competitions for the FYOB finals at the Cooks Classic.

2014 also sees the 25th Young Olympian Camp. Started in 1990, all but three editions of the programme have been held in Wanganui.

This year, we are repeating the Classic Young Olympian Tour started in 2011, which sees a group of leading school age athletes tour all three Classic meetings. There are supporting activities at all meetings and mentoring from experienced New Zealand athletes.

In Wanganui, for example, long-time international athlete Stuart Farquhar, who is competing in the special St Johns Club-sponsored javelin, will meet the 20 touring athletes, along with his experienced coach Debbie Strange.