Mount Aspiring College won the Bill Godsall Trophy for the top performing school at Challenge Wānaka this year. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
Athletics
In the last week of Term 4 last year, six of our pupils headed to Christchurch to compete in the 2023 New Zealand Secondary School Track and Field Championships.
Our pupils competed against New Zealand’s best school age athletes, delivering outstanding performances.
Niamh Townsend made the senior girls 100m finals and the college’s 4x400m senior mixed relay team became national champions when they won their final race.
A special mention to Phoebe Laker who turned up to the event to cheer on the team despite being injured and unable to compete.
Thanks to Mandy Enoka for taking on the role of team manager.
Multisport
Congratulations to two of our head pupils Tom Sides and Zavier Taylor who competed in the Coast to Coast on 9 and 10 February.
They raced in the tandem category and after two long days they came away with first place in the schools tandem category and an outstanding sixth place out of 50 tandem teams in the open category.
Tom Sides, 17, and Zavier Taylor, 17, won the schools tandem category in the Coast to Coast. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
Triathlon
Last week, more than 220 Mount Aspiring College pupils competed in Challenge Wānaka triathlon events.
On Thursday morning, a large contingent of Years 7 and 8 pupils tackled the intermediate course, consisting of a 200m swim, a 6km bike and 3km run.
These pupils competed either as individuals or teams and it was fantastic to see so many smiling faces out on the course.
Notable performances in the individual categories included Willis McCarroll (3rd, Year 7 male), Emily Boswell (3rd, Year 7 female), Theo Taylor (3rd, Year 8 male), Hana Carnie (1st, Year 8 female) and Paige Boomsma (2nd, Year 8 female).
In the afternoon, 70 senior pupils hit the course competing in the U14, U16 and U19 categories.
Our students’ attitude and sportsmanship was outstanding, both on and off the course.
A huge effort from all of our pupils led to many podium finishes, including Jack Sides: 2nd, U16 individual male, Fleur Jansen: 2nd, U16 individual female, Josh Moody: 1st, U19 individual male and Katie Lawrence: 3rd, U19 individual female.
Mount Aspiring College retained its crown as the ‘Top Performing School at the Challenge Wānaka Secondary School Event’ winning the Bill Godsall Trophy for the second year running.
On Saturday, a team of four Year 13 pupils took part in the Integrity Homes Challenge Wānaka Half Ironman.
The event was a 1.9km swim (Josh Moody), a 90km bike (Tom Sides and Hugo Sinclair) and 21.1km run (Zavier Taylor and Josh Moody).
They each put in a strong performance and took out the ‘school team’ category in a time of 4 hours and 40 minutes.
They also finished in a very impressive fifth place overall, out of 115 teams.
Special mention goes to Josh Moody whose swim and run were exceptional.
He completed the swim in 25:05 minutes and was the second team swimmer out of the water (his time would have put him in 8th place in the pro race).
For his run at the end of the team event, Josh ran an impressive sub-40 minute 10km, with Josh and Zavier together completing the third fastest run of all teams.
Congratulations everyone on an awesome effort from all of our students.
