Little Huntley School stands tall

The Coastguard and safety rowers watch swimmers in the Whanganui River during the NZ Schools Triathlon last week.

Huntley School from Marton stood tall amongst schools of the highest athletic pedigre when the final tallies of all results were added together from last week's David Jones Suzuki New Zealand Schools Triathlon Championships in Whanganui.

Proud headmaster Sam Edwards said his students brought back ten medals from the Individual and Team Triathlons, as well as the Aquathon and Tag Team Triathlons, held Thursday to Friday.

"They also won second best overall school, this was against secondary schools."

This was an excellent per capita effort for the small independent boarding school of less than 200 students.

Fred McVerry and Tanika Whale started the collection by coming runnerup in the Under 12 boys and girls triathlons on Thursday morning, with Annabel Symes coming third in the girls race.

Mathew Jamieson came second in the Under 13 boys race in a very close finish with winner Sam Idiens of Christs College.

Huntley had a great Thursday afternoon in the Teams Triathlon, with Huntley Red winning the Under 12 boys, while Huntley Black finished fourth.

Huntley Girls 1 took out the Under 12 girls race, with their own Huntley Girls 2 schoolmates just under a minute behind them in runnerup.

The Huntley Under 13 boys squad came second in their race.

Whale went one place better in Friday morning's individual aquathon, claiming victory by five seconds in 16m 28s.

It was no surprise then, that the school's best combined boys and girls were able to win the Under 12 Tag Team triathlon in the afternoon, seeing off runnerup Wanganui Intermediate by over two minutes, while the Huntley Red team came fourth in the same race.

In the Under 13 Tag Team triathlon, the Mitre 10 Mega Wanganui-sponsored Wanganui Intermediate were the victors, while the Wanganui Collegiate Under 14 team came third in their race.

The Collegiate Under 19 squad finished fifth in their age group race.