Cup skills quickly stack up

Ben Flighty, Caleb Arthur, Jasmine Anthony and Allanah Millar at the Central District Sport Stacking Championships at Cullinane College on Saturday. PHOTO/BEVAN CONLEY

About 34 speed stackers were out to prove the hand is quicker than the eye at the Central District Sport Stacking Championships at Cullinane College at the weekend.

Taking part in two sections - regular and first-time novices - the stackers competed with various configurations of drinking cups, such as sitting them up in a 3-6-3 stack of pyramids before taking them down again in the quickest time possible.

Nine members of the 12-person Black Stacks team were competing, although they were doing so individually.

The squad's first run-through as a team will be at the nationals next April, shortly before they depart to Montreal, Canada for the world championships.

Among them will be Wanganui Girls College student Jasmine Anthony, 14, and St Mary's Allanah Millar, 13, with Anthony practising a little French in case she needs it in the French-Canadian-speaking city.

Also going will be Feilding High School's Ben Flighty, 16, and Marton's Caleb Arthur, 15.

Home schooled as one of nine children, Arthur and his siblings learned speed stacking from a friend from Rotorua, with sister Brianna and brother Josiah having also been in the New Zealand wider selection group.