2009 NZCAA Interprovincial Teams Meeting for Grade 12 and 13 athletes
Easter Weekend, 11 - 12 April 2009
The team from Counties Manukau won this year’s Interprovincial Teams Meeting for Grade 12 and 13 athletes in Hamilton. They out-scored the other 10 teams with 115,793 points and dominated the top three in the Individual Grades, this was a big improvement on last years fifth place.
The team prepared themselves in advance by learning the necessity of warm up, warm downs and the technical side of their events. They then put it all into practice for the entire weekend. From the time they boarded the bus, they were totally committed to giving their best and earning the points. They achieved 83 personal bests from 169 events completed.
The middle and lower ranked athletes became the backbone of the team in that no matter where they were placed while competing they gave it 110 percent and they were not worried about not being in the top three places. Self belief that you can achieve anything if you want it enough!
The Counties Manukau team certainly improved on fifth place last year in style. They had the top grade 13 girl individual winner Merewarihi Vaka and second placedgrade 13 girl Paige Harwood. Other top performers in the team managed by Elizabeth Simpson were grade 12 girls Jennifer Lemisio and Mele Tiauli, who were second and third respectively. The boys performed well too, with Gene Te Amo second in the boys grade 12 and Dalton Coppins second in the boys grade 13.
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The team from Counties Manukau at this year's Interprovincial Teams Meeting for Grade 12 and 13 athletes.
Photo: Nesport (more images from the meet here)
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Auckland, with 113,368 points, came away in second place after finishing in the top position last year. One of their stand-out performers was Harry Marks who came second in the boys grade 12.
Canterbury also had to be content with dropping a place from the previous year. Canterbury was third with 112,454 points, with Lauri Watt collecting the girls grade 12 overall individual place. Other top three overall individual place-getters for Canterbury were Jesse Bryant, winner of the boys grade 13, and Thomas Martin, who was third in this grade.
Wellington was fourth with 110,071 points while local team, Waikato Bay of Plenty was fifth with 109,863 points. Waikato Bay of Plenty’s stand-out performer was Blake Gordon who won the grade 12 boys overall individual place.
Otago was sixth with 92,288 points while seventh place went to Manawatu Wanganui with 57,676 points. Manawatu-Wamganui’s Stephanie Dickens was third in the grade 13 girls overall individual place.
The smaller teams in size from around the country were also well represented by their young athletes. Taranaki were eighth (44,337 points), Southland ninth (32,793 points), and Hawkes Bay Gisborne were tenth with 26,528 points
A small contingent of nine grade 12 and 13 athletes made up the Northland team. The team scored 21,067 points, putting them into eleventh place.
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