Gunning for quieter start to Colgate Games

Napier Athletics official Graeme Wade concedes he's getting on in years.
But it wasn't the reason for his wanting a quieter start to the North Island Colgate Games in Hastings than the last time they were held in Hawke's Bay.
He's one of five starters for the packed three-day programme, which began with traffic jams and chaos today as 1284 athletes and families arrived at the Regional Sports Park in Hastings for the city's biggest sports event of 2011.
But as they prepared to start at 9am with the 12-year-old girls 400m, he recalled it was even more hectic in 2004 when the games were held at the now-closed Nelson Park.
"There were no other starters available for the first day," said 67-year-old Mr Wade.
"I started about 160 races on my own."
It highlights a problem of ageing officials in a sport which poses long hours, usually voluntary, and sometimes at considerable expense to the individual.
"It's expensive going away from home," he said.
"And all you get is a free lunch, if you're lucky."
He notes, though, that events such as the Colgate Games generally go to extremes to ensure the officials are fed and refreshed, the catering often also in the hands of volunteers.
Days officiating like today don't necessarily suit the working family person, who if they are at the event would most likely be there to watch their own children.
Having first fired the gun at the Taradale Athletic Club about 1995, as his two sons competed in the last few seasons before the club's merger with Napier, he says it was only when he gave up full-time work that he was able to take to being an official regularly.
"I was a commercial traveller, so it was very difficult getting involved in anything really," he said. "Especially midweek. I was always away."
His sports opportunities had also been limited as a youngster, because of the remoteness of life on a farm in Poverty Bay.
He found he was quickly in demand, and was a starter at the 1996 Colgate Games in Hastings, where the star athlete was Napier club runner Jason Stewart, who later broke several national age group and schools 800m records, won several national titles and competed at the Athens Olympics.
Mr Wade, qualified up to B-grade in the certification system, hasn't officiated at the Olympics or any other international meeting, although he has been a spectator at Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh and Kuala Lumpur.
But he has officiated up to New Zealand championship level, including other roles in the oval and once measured a shot put won by Valerie Adams.
Like the athletes themselves, possibly the toughest pressure is keeping-up, for the busy programme means any delay can cause mayhem in the programming of such an event as the Colgate Games, as athletes try to avoid clashes of their events.
On his mark and set to go, he reckoned he's got maybe two or three more years left pulling the trigger, and said: "You don't see quite as well, and you're reactions aren't quite as quick."
More than 100 officials were in place to ensure the smooth running of an event which has attracted 1284 young athletes, and is estimated to have drawn at least 4000 people into the area for the holidays.
There are younger starters including lawyer and former nationally-ranked Hastings sprinter Andrew Orme and Napier club chairman Miles Delamere.Editorial, p6