Marcus Agnew: Local talent need sports mecca

Marcus Agnew

Every other day I am getting approached by athletes or parents asking where to go for help, advice or training. It's no surprise that we produce so much talent; we have the perfect environment for it - great climate and the right-sized town for producing sport stars.

But as yet, we don't have facilities for the talent that other so-called "bigger centres" such as Dunedin have. There is no one "go-to" place to send talented athletes, or for parents to send their young kids for the best guidance on their athletic development.

On the bigger centres, it's always interesting that whenever statistics or information are given in the media, we are never one of those major centres listed. On the weather map, and the lists of recent record temperatures in February, we always seem to be missed out when they overview the big centres - we must be small!

Typically they go through Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and these days Tauranga as well. It's now entrenched in our psyche that we're a little regional town ... or are we?

When I was growing up, the main centres were simple: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

So it certainly surprised me when I discovered that the twin cities' combined urban population was fifth-largest. We have since been caught up by Tauranga, and are essentially equal fifth-largest on 130,000, well ahead of next-ranked Dunedin with just 117,000.

Other cities that most people would generally rank of similar stature to us are Palmerston North, which sits on 83,000, and New Plymouth at 56,000 - miles behind!

So many people are surprised by that, it's just not something we often hear or talk about.
You may say, so what? Well, to me it is very significant. It creates a mindset that we are small, and that we should just accept "whatever".

We are just little Napier, or Hastings, and we are never going to be like the big towns. But no, the point is that in terms of a critical mass of population living within close proximity, we are a major centre - the beautiful "twin cities". Even Statistics NZ aggregates the twin cities into one unit, Napier-Hastings.

It's pretty cool, certainly unique and special to this country to have two cities so close, and quite unusual around the world. Just 20km between city centres. So no, we are not a little regional town, we are the populous of Napier-Hastings - and we are big! The beauty, also, is that we are nicely spread out, not congested all over each other with traffic hassles. So even though territorially there may be some borders, for the average Joe like me, you can wake up in the morning, get out and enjoy your day, regardless of where the beach, facility or activity is located - it's all Hawke's Bay.

So yes, it's no surprise that with our great environment and our nationally ranked urban population that we produce so much talent. The challenge is what can we offer them. I am constantly hearing of talented young Hawke's Bay athletes, many representing junior NZ teams and heading off to world champs, and many are looking for a place to go - a place to train with others of their ilk, and to get the developmental support they need.

Yes, there are some very good community gyms, but if someone comes to town and asks to be pointed to our region's athlete performance development centre, to get the best expert advice from accredited high-performance trainers, where do you send them?

Where is the pride of our sporting region, our sporting mecca?

Waipukurau has one, Wairoa has one, both with gym, court space and pool all on-site. Absolutely marvellous - but the twin cities don't - why not?

¦Marcus Agnew leads Talent Development and the Pathway to Podium for Sport Hawke's Bay. He is also a lecturer in sports science at EIT.