London brings out best of NZ students

TRAINING GROUND: The New Zealand Schools Cross Country team gather at the New Zealand Memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London PHOTO/RHYS TAUCHER, SACRED HEART MANAGER

AFTER two damp and chilly days the sun has broken out and the New Zealand Secondary Schools team has settled into a routine of training, recovery and discovery in London.

The group moves on to Budapest, Hungary today after a few hours less than a week in exciting London.

Travel, although long with flights including time on the ground of over 34 hours, went without incident, except for our Whanganui pair of Christian Conder and Jane Lennox.

Their first flight from Whanganui was over two hours late to Auckland meaning that they missed the formal introductions and team talk, but importantly they did make our late afternoon flight. An afternoon arrival in London meant that they only needed to be kept awake until early evening.

Touring with younger inexperienced athletes is about routine training, good recovery and a series of non-tiring exciting more educational opportunities.

Already they have been on The Original open bus tour (second half in rain) the London Eye, Harry Potter Experience, Changing of the Guard, a day trip to Brighton (glorious sunshine) and a couple of forays to shops with a resultant boost to the British economy.

The main part of the routine is daily morning training in the magnificent Hyde Park only a few minutes jog from the accommodation. The only variation to this routine was our own relays at Hyde Park on Saturday. The total team was divided into six four-person teams selected so that the teams were as equal in strength as possible.

Each team of four had a New Zealand representative girl and boy as well as a Sacred Heart Auckland boy and one girl from St Cuthbert's College . The boys from the New Zealand team and Sacred Heart proved to run times that were very close over the 2km course. This certainly bodes well for the team races at the end of the week. Joseph Clark (Westlake Boys High School) ran the fastest individual running across the line centimetres ahead of Isiah Priddey (Hamilton Boys High School).

Priddey is coached by his father Vaughan who attended Rangitikei College and travelled to Australia in 1989 with the Whanganui team competing in the Australian Schools in Adelaide. In that same team wasRobert Conder who now coaches Isiah's teammate Christian.

Clark's performance did upset our careful seeding as we had ranked him sixth of the NZ Schools team and the fact that he was in the same team as the outstanding Hannah O'Connor from Sacred Heart New Plymouth meant that their team won our internal trophy convincingly. The gap between the strongest and weakest girls was much greater. O'Connor, the youngest in the team and still only 15, has huge talent and has continued the form that took 24 seconds off the North Island Schools 3000 metre under-16 record at the start of the month.

Jane Lennox finished just inside the top two thirds of the group. 2000 metres has always been short for her and the lack of a hill in Hyde Park did not help her cause. She has trained well since Saturday and looks to be coming into her best form.

Christian Conder clearly suffered from the journey and, in fact, on the day of the race we had a doctor in as a precaution. He believed that in trying to sleep Conder had strained a muscle in the chest and that it would probably settle. Conder therefore did not run in the relays.

Relieved that it was not more serious, Conder is back in training and says he is ready for a harder run (today) and is confident that he can give a good account of himself.

The London section ends today and we have the usual training early, clear up and pack and then attend a matinee of the Lion King with an early night ready for a 7am departure and the challenges of Budapest and the ISF World Schools which I will report on next week.