So yes, 300 athletes from around the country selected and only three from Hawke's Bay, so congratulations to those girls for making the cut.
But what those numbers also suggest, is that we could be doing better as a region to provide the necessary support, to progress more of our natural talent to the next level required for selection.
We have the natural environment here in Hawke's Bay - with plenty of available activities, and sunshine for greater accumulated playtime for kids - which means we will always naturally produce talent to a point.
But to give the kids the opportunity to take it to the next level, and reach their goals, we need a system - "It takes a village to raise a child; it takes a system to develop an athlete".
Many of our emerging youth athletes have had to leave the region to get the support they need, yes they all have to leave at some point, but ideally not when they are too young, and not for support that should be able to be provided here.
Others have had to move, simply to get noticed, which again is something we can improve on as a region.
Developing and maintaining excellence (role models, or whatever you want to call them) in our region, regardless of the field or industry, is crucial.
The knock-on effect for the rest of the community can't be underestimated, the inspirational pathway that other youngsters (and oldies) will see and the belief they will gain - and conversely the negative impact of sucking the best talent out of a region, and the lack of interest and aspiration in the sporting groups and peers they leave behind, can also not be underestimated.
So yes there is more we can do, and the qualified staged physical development progressions of our emerging talent, is one of the biggest missing pieces of the puzzle - we have an array of fantastic coaches in the Bay, and now with the proposed facility developments at the Sports Park we have the opportunity to provide the physical athletic development to go with it.
There are some long-held perceptions that physical strength development is dangerous for youth, which of course it is not, if developed in a research led long-term approach, with movement quality and technique at the fore.
There has been a myth around stunted growth etc, a perception that has changed largely around the world among researchers and experts in the field, but we still have a way to go to increase the awareness of the benefits of physical development in youth.
In particular, the biggest misconceptions relate to girls and resistance training - the social/cultural view that could hold back the development of young women.
We have seen big changes in recent years, with women's involvement in sport, let alone resistance training, but we still have a ways to go.
You could easily argue it is more important for girls than boys.
The relative drop-off in strength post puberty that females experience relative to males, the muscle imbalances that can enhance likelihood of injury, and the vital importance of developing bone strength for later in life, is particularly important for females.
And don't worry girls, the other common misconception of females who resistance train suddenly having bulging muscles and hairy arms like a man, don't worry, it won't happen!
Sounds crazy, but it is all part of the reason why international women's weightlifting wasn't even in the Olympics until as recently as 2000; deemed not appropriate, yet the men had been doing it since 1896!
With a facility and region-wide coordinated system in place, we can provide the final pieces of the pathway that our regions talent deserves.
At the end of the day, our young athletes don't actually need too much, they just need quality.
The right stuff, at the right time, and we definitely don't want to over train them; sometimes less is more - balance is better - eat healthy with plenty of physical activity over the Festive season.
Marcus Agnew is the Health & Sport Development Manager at Hawke's Bay Community Fitness Centre Trust and is also a lecturer in sports science at EIT.
