LAKESIDE JAUNT: The annual Round the Lake Relay for secondary schools has grown both in stature and size since the first around Virginia Lake in Whanganui in July, 1978.
A 1978 summer walk around Virginia Lake and happy memories of the annual University Hyde Park Relays competed for by UK University running relay teams around the Serpentine Lake in London led to the setting up the popular Round the Lake Relay for secondary schools in Whanganui.
The first Round the lake Relay in July 1978 attracted 58 teams from 14 schools. The inaugural event was won by Wanganui Boys College after an outstanding anchor leg by Dean Crowe who later went on to a USA Scholarship and selection for the Oceania Team at the World Cup.
The event quickly grew to attract over 150 teams annually with a record 204 teams in 1988.The wonderful venue, the team nature of the event with its relay format established the event as a hugely popular fixture on the schools calendar. Teams from throughout the lower North Island regularly attend. The addition of Year 7 and 8 teams from Intermediate Schools ten years ago was a popular addition to the programme.
Next Monday (5th September) will be the 38th edition of the Wanganui Collegiate School hosted event. On three occasions the event was moved from Virginia Lake to Wanganui Collegiate School.
On two occasions this was because of inclement weather and in 2002 the 25th Anniversary race was also held on the Collegiate School grounds. Hopefully the weather will stay fine and on Monday the race will be around our magnificent Virginia Lake for the 35th time.
At close of entries we have 24 schools entering just over 100 teams. This represents a slight drop from the 29 schools and 146 teams last year. The main area where there has been a decrease has been at Intermediate School level where the growth of The AIMS Games in Tauranga has produced a clash of events for athletes in that age group.
We are looking closely at a possible move to May next year to avoid this clash. A relay in May would also help secondary schools preparing for the New Zealand Secondary Schools in June and with the addition of Regional Relays to the June event could also prove popular.
It would also mean that Round the lake Relay would not follow the week after Secondary School Tournament week that could lead to an increase of Secondary Schools entries.
The size of the secondary schools entry has been retained with good entries from Taranaki, Hawkes Bay, Manawatu and Wellington. Again only four of the Wanganui Regions schools are competing with numbers reduced because of clashes with internal Trial Exams.
Regular winners Wellington College return with strong numbers (8 teams) and will again be challenged by fellow Wellington Region schools St Patrick's College Silverstream and Scots College and a Taranaki challenge from New Plymouth Boys High School who have 12 teams entered in the three boy's grades (the largest school entry).
Host school Wanganui Collegiate won the senior girls last year but will face a stern challenge from Wellington Girls College and Wellington East from the south, Napier Girls from the east and New Plymouth Girls High School and Sacred Heart New Plymouth from the west.
Collegiate have a stronger chance in the Junior Grade when they are fielding a strong combination headed by Caitlyn Alabaster and three team mates who were part of the winning three and six to score teams at the New Zealand Schools in June.
The great popularity of the event has almost certainly been because it is a relay. However, there is strong individual competition in the first lap of both the senior boys and girls races where leading runners strive for the fastest first lap performance.
Again two handsome prizes have been sponsored by Bates Watchmaker who have supported the event right from the start in 1978.
In the girls race Hannah O'Connor (sacred Heart New Plymouth) will seek to repeat her win last year and will also look to beat the course record set by Holly van Dalen in 2006 (she was only two seconds shy of it last year), O'Connor will face a stern challenge from Tessa Webb (Feilding HS) who was the NZ Schools senior champion in June.
In the boys race Angus White (New Plymouth Boys High School) and Christian Conder (Wanganui Collegiate School) will start as favourites. White finished ahead of Conder at the New Zealand Schools and Australian Schools with Conder heading White at the Athletics New Zealand Championships in Auckland at the beginning of August. They could threaten the record set by Matt Baxter (New Plymouth Boys High School).
The first race (the Intermediate Schools and Year 9 race for girls) starts at 1-040 pm with the fourth and last race (Senior and Junior A boys race) at 3 -55 pm.