Tom Bywater watched his wife Carla during the early stages of her Triple Peaks Challenge race before joining his Napier Old Boys Marist rugby teammates on a bus trip to the Spillane Cup tournament in Palmerston North at the weekend.
Carla later phoned her hubby to tell him she had won. It was a memorable comeback for Carla, the 2015 winner of the Hawke's Bay adventure race, who missed last year's edition because she was out of action for six months after a cycle crash.
"She was definitely an inspiration for me. The rest of the boys congratulated Carla too because she used to be our team physio," lock Bywater explained.
That inspiration proved to b the right fuel for 28-year-old Bywater. He won the Frank Oliver Man of Steel Award for the player-of-the-match in the final after Hawke's Bay Insurance Brokers NOBM beat Marist St Pats of Wellington 22-3 on Sunday to complete a New Zealand Marist 15s and 7s double for the year as they won the 7s title in Wellington in January.
"It was the first time the award had been presented [former All Black Oliver died in 2014] and it was quite an honour to have it presented by one of Frank's sons and grandsons," Bywater recalled yesterday.