CELEBRATING: Char Niles with tournament mascots. PHOTO/Supplied
CELEBRATING: Char Niles with tournament mascots. PHOTO/Supplied
By any measure you use, the WSF World Junior Squash championship held in Tauranga last month was an unmitigated success.
Feedback from players and coaches, world squash officials, local business owners, Tauranga City Council, the hard working group of 200 volunteers and a new generation of young squash fans was unanimous in their praise.
Tauranga's burgeoning reputation as a host city, thanks to the professionalism shown by cricket, basketball and AIMS Games administrators in particular, has been given its biggest boost yet by the two-week spectacular.
For those who dedicated two years to organising the tournament, like organising committee chairman Wayne Werder and marketing communications manager Char Niles, the satisfaction from a job well done is enormous.
There is a genuine sense of pride in what has been achieved and no little relief that everything went so well.
The opening ceremony was when Werder realised the tournament had finally arrived after so much organising to get to that point.
"It was the signal that two years of work was coming together and for me just the vibrancy of seeing 28 countries and different nationalities and colour come together in one room for the first time was exciting and also a reflection on two years of work," he said.
The tournament exceeded all expectations organisers had before it began.
"It was a phenomenal success. I have had numerous people come up to me and congratulate us on the best world juniors they had been to," Werder said.
"Two goals I had in mind was to run the best ever world juniors but also to put Tauranga on the map. I don't think I spoke to a person who didn't mention in some way how beautiful Tauranga was and how they would love to come back and visit at some point."
He said the future looked bright for Tauranga as a host city for the future.
"I have already had people wanting to plan forward as to what is next in Tauranga from a squash perspective. Is it a big senior tournament, is it another world tournament. Certainly from squash's perspective we are right on the map.
"I would hope now that other sporting codes can feel pretty confident that they can bid for world events as well to be hosted in Tauranga."
NEW BREED: Greenpark School pupils having fun at the world squash tournament. PHOTO/Supplied
For Niles, seeing busloads of schoolchildren arriving to get their first major experience of international squash was a highlight.
"That was really successful. From July 25 to 27 we had 1200 school kids come through to Memorial Hall and have a fun day which was co-ordinated by Sport Bay of Plenty and our volunteers," she said.
"They have been doing a programme in the schools called the KiwiSquash School Legacy Programme with four weeks in school coaching. They also completed a resource book around adopt a nation.
"They had a micro court to have a go at, they came through and watched some live squash and we entertained them in the middle of the games with music.
"At the end we asked them post event how many wanted to be involved in squash and 85 per cent stuck up their hands. Now the challenge for us as clubs and Squash Bay of Plenty is to build the growth."
Niles said statistically the world squash champs produced outstanding live streaming viewer figures.
"We hit our targets in the US, UK and Egypt. Probably the most outstanding stat was 9.9 million impressions came from our posts, which means the world was watching."
Niles also helped run a design a mascot competition which was won by Omokoroa No 1 School. They were presented with their prize of $1800 worth of sport kit on live breakfast television.
