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IPs U16/U18 2022 started last weekend
The U16/U18 North Island Inter-provincials is a competition for the U14 through to U18 age groups for Athletics. It is a chance for athletes to compete for the Waikato Bay of Plenty region and fight for medals and trophies. Normally we would travel away for the weekend and compete in our own event, this year was meant to be south Auckland. This season, due to our horrible friend Covid, we are completing the event over 7 weekends at our local Open meets.
For 2022, it started this weekend… with a big bang, around 20 personal best results were smashed! Plus, it was great to see the supporters being loud and proud and positively supportive.
The highlights from the event were Manaia Christiansen, Harrison Roberts-Blake, Fletcher van Heuven, Nathan Brown and Dylan Powell who all had double PB’s (in two separate events). The main photo is of Manaia Christiansen, mid-way through the Discus, he smashed his seasons goals in both Shotput and Discus, beating both PB’s by around 1m. He was one happy talented person!
Other PB athletes included Kamaia Minhinnick, Maia Poutawera, HeatherAnn, Wiremu and Tāne Knowles, Teeka Randell, Saskia Rhind, Odin Herrick, Adisen Mahy. Watching some of these athletes cross the line – and then stumble to the side of the track – showed their commitment to gaining points and determination towards the race they were in.
The weather was perfect for the event, and everyone was wearing their best smile. The officials were supportive and really helped make the younger athletes feel more comfortable with being there. This was appreciated as we know that their roles are very important to the events that our athletes take part in.
Being able to see some of these athletes putting in such a high standard and achieving their goals was awesome, including some athletes that were doing events they normally wouldn’t, and doing PB’s showed their team spirit. I was impressed with the 300m Hurdles, where the majority of the athletes did PB’s. Both races were hard, intense and a few of them took some time to recover, which showed how much effort these athletes put into their races. It was also great to see so many athletes competing in the sprint events, as there were loads of heats and these helped our athletes perform at their best. Photo two is of HeatherAnn Knowles at the start of the 300m Hurdles.
Having a super-hot day with little wind might be great for the sprinters and high jumpers, but the distance runners had to deal with this on the track. Watching Adisen complete a PB for the 800m with both legs bright blue with tape – interesting, stylish – then jump close to his PB for high jump soon after indicates the great deal of strength that he used.
We eventually had around 24 athletes competing at the Tauranga Open meet, a great start for the 2022 Inter-provincials. But that was only race one… Bring on the rest!
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