Athletics: Family's sporting pedigree to fore at games

A chip off the old block was the words Helen Mahon-Stroud used to describe the victory of her daughter Georgia in the 1500m at the Colgate Games held at the Caledonian Ground over the weekend.

Mahon-Stroud was taking a weekend away from her role as coach of the Canterbury Tactix netball team, and was rewarded with the impressive athletic results achieved by her three children.

Ben (12) strung together a series of personal bests in the 100m, 200m, 400m and long jump, and Lucy (8) achieved personal bests in long jump, 60m, 100m, 200m, and was lead-off runner in the bronze medal-winning Papanui Toc H 4x100 relay team which also included Katie MacLeod, Macy Neale and Lauren Voice-Powell.

But it was middle sibling Georgia (10) who drew the loudest applause from the huge crowd, when she stamped her authority on the 1500m field for grade 10 girls, winning by 17sec and clocking 5min 21.15sec, reminiscent of the feats achieved by her mother, Helen, who was also a talented middle-distance runner in her youth.

Georgia's 1500m success on top of her 800m victory on Friday also added to the pride in his children of former All White goalkeeper Alan Stroud.

The secret of the family's success was in cross-training, according to Helen, who also coaches junior surf live-saving at Taylors Mistake, where the family play an active role.

Ben is also a talented midfielder for the Coastal Spirit club in Christchurch and when asked of he had any aspirations to follow in his father's footsteps, he replied "one day", in a very positive and focused manner.

Aside from athletics, football and surf life-saving, the family's very busy sporting life also sees Lucy competing well in gymnastics, while Georgia is starting for the Hearts netball team.

Helen, a former New Zealand secondary schools middle distance representative, was full of praise for the Colgate Games event and its focus on fostering junior athletics talent.

"I see faces of parents I used to run against myself. And from a coach's point of view the development of the sport is heading in a really good direction."

Another emerging middle distance talent from Canterbury, Laura Smith (Christchurch Avon) brought the crowd to their feet with a stunning run over the final 500m in the grade 14 girls 1500m title, recording a personal best time of 4min 49.88sec.