No rest for multi-sport athlete Rawiri Tristram-Brown

Levin athlete Rawiri Tristram-Brown, 14, is excelling in both basketball and swimming.

Levin athlete Rawiri Tristram-Brown doesn’t get much time to rest.

When he’s not training or competing at national swimming events, he’s practicing or playing his next game of basketball.

In the last month, the Horowhenua College student competed at major swimming championships. He shaved 11 seconds off his personal best time in the 200-metre freestyle at the NZ Open Championship, while also competing in backstroke events.

It was a just reward for a good training ethic that sees him in the pool three times a week, training for two hours at a time.

Just last week, he played a game of national league basketball in Tauranga, while there are numerous other events in different codes approaching in the next few months. Basketball was that much better thanks to him having the use of a $12,500 wheelchair sponsored by Melrose Wheelchairs.

Tristram-Brown, 14, was born with spina bifida - an incomplete closing of the backbone and membranes around the spinal cord - which meant he required continuous surgery throughout his childhood, the most recent instance being an operation for a dislocated hip. He was unable to walk.

Levin athlete Rawiri Tristram-Brown, 14, is excelling in both basketball and swimming.

Basic daily tasks that most people take for granted are a challenge, yet his biggest asset - his attitude and perseverance - sees him doing more and competing in more sports than most able-bodied people.

Those challenges haven’t stopped him from putting the pedal down and participating in a variety of sports. He’s played rugby before, too. It is an approach that saw him awarded the Spirit of the Games award as a youngster at the 2018 Halberg Junior Disability Games.

Rawiri Tristram-Brown, pictured in 2018.

Tristram-Brown has been raised in Levin by his grandmother Mabel Tasker and her partner Roy Freegard.

Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air.