In the final of our series celebrating our region's sporting prowess, Juliet Rowan investigates what makes the Bay of Plenty such a rich breeding ground for athletic talent.
Speak to any athlete and ask them the best thing about growing up in Tauranga, and the answer is the same: the proximity and calibre of the training environment.
This is particularly true for athletes involved in water sports, such as Olympic kayaker Luuka Jones and new America's Cup helmsman Peter Burling.
Jones, ranked 10th in the world in women's K1 canoe slalom and hopeful of a medal at next year's Rio Olympics, grew up at Waimarino on the banks of the Wairoa River.
"I'd just wake up in the morning and paddle down to training," the 26-year-old says. "Tauranga's perfect. It's got the Wairoa River and it's only an hour to the Kaituna [in Rotorua]."
Burling similarly, grew up in Welcome Bay and was able to cycle to Tauranga Harbour for sailing training.
"It definitely made life very easy when you were younger to get in a lot of hours on the water," he says.
The 24-year-old went to his first Olympics at 17 and won a silver in London at 21 after moving to Tauranga from Auckland as a youngster.
His father, Richard, a former teacher and yachting teams coach at his son's school, Tauranga Boys' College, said the fact Peter could cycle the 8km to the harbour eliminated the need for him to go to the gym because he was already so fit.
Richard Burling says young Bay sailors can also store their boats at the yacht club, which gives them a huge advantage because they can be in the water by 4pm on school days. Sailors at many Auckland schools, by contrast, are forced to keep their boats at home, then must battle traffic to get to weekday training.
"If you've got in the water by 5pm [in Auckland], you've done well," says Richard Burling.
The elder Burling also believes school-aged Tauranga athletes are more independent and better equipped to deal with the stresses of performing on the national and international stage.
"We're used to travelling to competitions so our transition is much easier."
As well as easy access to the outdoors, the standard of the natural training environment is unparalleled, says national beach volleyball champion Mike Watson.
"The Mount beach is actually the best beach in the country to play on because it's so wide and the sand is so soft," the 26-year-old says.
Watson's family moved from Auckland when he was a baby and his father, Ian, a teacher at Otumoetai College, says the climate and situation in the Bay "lends itself to sporting excellence". He says: "If we were still in Auckland, [Mike] would not have played volleyball.
"He plays volleyball because we came to Tauranga and because the beach is so close. If you lived in Auckland and had to travel here, there and everywhere, it suddenly becomes a lot harder."
Otumoetai College volleyball coach Stewart Henderson agrees.
"The whole outdoor ethos involved in the Bay and the Bay environment make it a really great place to grow up."
The size of the city is also a factor, says Athletics New Zealand coach Kerry Hill, who has been based here since 2012.
He says Tauranga's size makes it perfect for athletes compared with other larger cities where "the opportunities for sport and recreation are not so great, and the distractions from sport and recreation are great".
"Kids are more active in smaller towns," says Hill. "Auckland has more infrastructure problems and getting to venues can be difficult. There's a distinct advantage here in that area."
Other athletes say the fact they are not battling the elements compared with sports people in the South Island makes for a favourable training environment.
"You've got nice weather all year round and lots of different training venues - the beach, hills, track and gyms," says sprinter Joseph Millar, who holds the national 100m record and lives at Papamoa.
"Everything just combines to make things a little bit easier so you can put that little bit of effort into training harder."
Millar and current national 100m champion Kodi Harman train at Oceanblue Health and Fitness at Papamoa, and Millar says it rivals the country's best gyms, including those at High Performance Sport New Zealand training facilities.
SCHOOLS
The Bay's schools also work hard to nurture sporting talent.
Tauranga Boys' College boasts many talented athletes past and present, and features a high-performance programme that is unique in the country.
Olympic sailor Peter Burling, Black Cap batsman Kane Williamson, All Blacks hooker Nathan Harris, national canoe slalom champion Mike Dawson, and All Whites Ryan Thomas and Tyler Boyd - all of whom have featured in our series celebrating the Bay's top sports people the past three weeks - are among recent alumni of the school to achieve success on the world stage.
For more than a decade, Tauranga Boys' has offered a high-performance programme to the school's top athletes that involves teaching sport inside and outside the classroom. Students are selected on the basis of their athletic achievement and the programme focuses on teaching NCEA subjects that are relevant to sport - including biomechanics, exercise physiology and anatomy.
Darrell Boyd (left), Tauranga Boys' College director of sport, and Rob Leslie, hockey coach
"It's academic study through the context of sport," says Darrell Boyd, the school's director of sport. "They learn about how they can be better in their sport."
Boyd says another key aspect of the school's success is the level of competition at which its top teams play.
The cricket 1st XI play in the senior men's competition and the rugby 1st XV play in the Super 8 schools competition, which boasts the top eight teams in the central North Island.
Richard Burling, a former teacher and sports coach at the school, says he noticed the competitive edge of the Tauranga Boys' 1st XI after moving from Massey High School in West Auckland.
"They were so hard-nosed because they were playing against men."
Another key feature at Tauranga Boys' is all the coaches of its top teams are teachers which, says Darrell Boyd, allows for relationships to be fostered between the sports field and classroom.
Boyd has worked at the school since 2006 and has coached volleyball at national and international level.
Dedication among staff to sport is also obvious when you take the example of Rob Leslie, who has coached cricket and hockey at Tauranga Boys' for 30 years.
Leslie says the school's ability to attract high-level sports people as teachers is part of the secret of its success.
The current staff has four teachers who have played representative hockey and a half-dozen cricketers of the same level.
"It's the accumulation of knowledge over a long period of time," Leslie says. "Once you have that culture established, it can be self-perpetuating."
Otumoetai College is another Tauranga school that consistently turns out top athletes.
Olympic kayaker Luuka Jones attended Otumoetai and said it was always flexible when it came to allowing her space to pursue her sport.
Kerry Hill
"I could turn up late to school and miss form class because it was for training," she says. The school is also renowned for its volleyball prowess, producing many successful players on both the court and beach.
"Otumoetai College is one of the three or four best schools in the country for volleyball," says national beach volleyball champion Mike Watson.
"We're pretty lucky to have access to those kind of coaches at a younger age."
Watson's volleyball partner, Sam O'Dea, also went to the school and, together, the former Otumoetai boys play on the world circuit with the aim of turning pro and achieving Olympic success.
Among their school coaches was Stewart Henderson, a science teacher who in 35 years at the school has helped Otumoetai teams win 10 national titles. Henderson, 68, is a former coach of the New Zealand junior women's team and, under his tutelage, Otumoetai's senior girls' team heads into next week's national championships as the No 1 seeds.
The team came runners-up at the nationals last year and won the year before, and last week took the Bay of Plenty title.
Henderson says Bay schools have dominated volleyball since the 1970s, meaning Otumoetai always approaches national competitions with the benefit of experience against tough competition.
Henderson started coaching "in the days when every teacher coached" and is modest about his own part in the success of the school's players. "I loved all sports and it just happened that volleyball needed more coaches. All the schools round here, they have the coaches and they have kids who want to play." Many of Otumoetai's best volleyball players go on to scholarships at universities in the United States, or achieve success in other codes.
One of Henderson's former proteges is Black Sticks hockey player Samantha Charlton, who first honed her athletic skills playing volleyball.
Henderson says every sporty kid at Otumoetai wants to play volleyball because of the school's profile in the sport, and Charlton won a national beach title before deciding to dedicate herself to hockey.
Charlton, 23, recalls her time at Otumoetai as being crucial to her success, saying her school hockey coach, Alan Galletly, got her to regional level.
"He was the one who pushed me and helped me to take steps to play NHL," Charlton says.
Galletly is another long-term coach, teaching hockey at the school since 1980 and also coaching Charlton's Midlands team. At that time, Midlands also boasted another Tauranga player, Gemma Flynn, now the Black Sticks' most-capped player.
TOP COACHES
AS well as great coaches in schools, the Bay also benefits from top national and international coaching talent.
Leading Athletics New Zealand coach Kerry Hill is based in Tauranga, coming to the region in 2012 after eight years as manager of talent development at the world's largest sports academy in Qatar.
"It is very, very lucky to have him here," says Papamoa sprinter and new national 100m champion Kodi Harman. "His experience goes so deep and I'm really honoured to have him as my coach."
As well as Hills' experience in the Middle East, he is a former director of coaching for Athletics NZ and Singapore Athletics, and is sprints and relays co-ordinator for the national organisation.
He has coached seven New Zealand athletes to the Olympics and among those he currently works with is Harman, who won the 100m title on March 6 and is aiming for next year's Rio Olympics.
Tauranga pole vaulter Hannah Philpot, 17.
Hill says his experience in Qatar enriched his coaching expertise because although he was working with local athletes, the academy attracted coaches of international renown.
"The quality of people was exciting. There were talented staff from all over the world."
After returning from Qatar, Hill chose to move to Tauranga, despite spending much of his career on Auckland's North Shore.
He says the Bay is a great base for young athletes because it is free of traffic hassles, cheaper to live, and has a growing university presence.
Rugby is another sport that benefits from top coaches.
All Black hooker Nathan Harris, who grew up in Te Puke, says as well as the coaching support of his school, Tauranga Boys' College, the Bay of Plenty Rugby Union gave him access to the likes of legendary All Blacks sevens coach, Sir Gordon Tietjens, when he played for the Steamers.
"You've got a lot of resources available," Harris says.
The Bay's natural environment also acts as a pull for overseas coaches, says Canoe Slalom Bay of Plenty.
The organisation has two full-time coaches, one from the Czech Republic and the other from France, while the national coach Aaron Osborne coaches half-time for the Bay.
"We punch above our weight," says Sue Clarke, chairman of Canoe Slalom BOP and manager of the national performance programme.
Many of the sport's top athletes come from the Bay, and Clarke (whose daughter Ella Nicholas is among a number of local kayakers training for the Rio Olympics) believes their success is due to a variety of factors: proximity of good whitewater for training, schools picking up talent, top coaches and the type of people who make the Bay their home.
COMMUNITY
Every athlete profiled in our sports people series has spoken not just of the support from their schools and coaches, but also their families and the wider community.
Peter Burling says he could not have achieved his sailing success if it had not been for the support of his parents. "I definitely owe them a lot," he says.
His father and manager, Richard Burling, says the local sailing fraternity is also hugely supportive, with older sailors always willing to let young ones on their boats during racing on Tauranga Harbour.
"They're really, really accommodating to the kids, and the kids are learning other skills outside their class."
Richard Burling is, in fact, a model of what it means to be accommodating and his involvement in his son's sport is typical of Bay sports stars' families.
He spends his days taking care of all Peter's sporting, health and accommodation needs for competitions here and overseas, and previously worked as yachting teams coach at his son's school, Tauranga Boys' College.
All Black Nathan Harris' father, Quentin, is another with a high level of involvement in his son's sport, including coaching rugby and helping Nathan win gold medals in short and long-course kayaking when he represented Papamoa Surf Lifesaving Club as a teenager.
Now, the younger Harris shows a similar willingness to give to the community, often visiting schools and kindergartens to teach kids about rugby when he returns home during breaks in training.
Ian Watson, father of beach volleyball champion Mike Watson and a teacher at Otumoetai College for 25 years, says everyone in the Tauranga community is supportive of sports people.
"Mike has got a beach volleyball net and most of the time he leaves it up at the Mount beach. It never gets vandalised. It never gets stolen. The whole community just respects it."
