Kids Games participants now on second round of coaching

Using tactics learnt in the coaching sessions Ryan Clark (13), of St Joseph's School, dodges the...
Using tactics learnt in the coaching sessions Ryan Clark (13), of St Joseph's School, dodges the defence of Ethan Cruise (12) during ripper rugby. Photo by Christina McDonald.
The Wakatipu Kids Games, which will be run parallel to the Olympics, are putting schoolchildren through their paces ahead of competition days in July and August.

Lakes Leisure community programme and recreation manager Jendi Paterson said the games programme so far had exceeded expectations and positive feedback had come from coaches, teachers and the pupils.

Ms Paterson said Kiwi Sport funding, which would pay for 50% of the programme, had been officially approved last Wednesday.

The children are in the second cycle of the coaching programme, which gave them a second look at sports they had been introduced to in the first cycle.

"Now, this cycle, we are doing a lot more game time," Ms Paterson said.

She said a lot of the success had been in introducing children to sports they may not have been willing to try on their own.

"This is giving your average kid the chance to get out there."

Ripper rugby and football coach Simon Hope said it had been heartening to hear about children starting up their own football clubs during lunchtime.

"As a coach that's really good to hear."

Ms Paterson said the competition days would have an Olympic theme, with children being assigned a country to represent.

As there are more than 700 children participating, each class would be split into two teams and given the same country, for example Spain 1 and Spain 2. They would play on the same field as another classroom, which would also be broken up into two teams.

Each class would play netball, ripper rugby, rugby league and football, with classes doubling up on one sport.

 

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