It just shows what can be done when a group of people have a vision and roll their sleeves up to get it done. It shows business and community sport can collaborate to drive healthy community outcomes, and promote the business brand too.
The brand promotion in sport doesn't just have to be at the highest sporting level like the All Blacks, it can work well at a community and regional level as well. The more quality events we have, and the more we develop sporting role models in our region, the more business can align with them and create the win-win scenarios.
We need our own local stars to be those positive role models for our youth.
The more local young talent we develop and promote, the more homegrown brand ambassadors we will have. Those emerging athletes will then get the support they need to reach their potential, and double up as real life role models that the local kids can aspire to, and so promotes greater healthy activity across the community.
Having local sporting high achievers helps our local kids believe in themselves – if they see their role models up close in real life, rather than just on TV, they realise the young stars are just normal people, with normal challenges, who have worked hard to achieve their goals, and the kids can do the same.
Sanitarium and the organisers do a great job – getting a few stars along to encourage kids across the finish line, and secondary school athletes to also help around the event. They have got a great activity well entrenched on the New Zealand kids sport calendar, and running in 17 locations all around the country.
The TRYathlon is a great bit of variety for the kids, away from the more regular sport and activities they might be involved in.
For some they will be inspired to enter more such events and love the competition of triathlons. For some it will help them learn to train properly for their own sport of choice - while for others less athletically inclined, it might just give them the confidence to know they can get involved in an activity, that they will get supported by others, and that it isn't as scary as they thought.
Physical and mental health is becoming an increasingly massive concern for our communities, and combined with an ageing population, we need these health promoting activities that make a difference.
Hopefully more and more business will see the value of getting their brand in behind such events, and as a society we see sport not just as a competitive environment, but as a vital agent for activating healthy lifestyle habits to the masses.
Supporting our local rising stars is not just about them as individuals, but about the wider reach into the community that they have, by inspiring many others into healthy activity.
• Marcus Agnew is the health and sport development manager at Hawke's Bay Community Fitness Centre Trust and is also a lecturer in sports science at EIT.
• All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
