College Sport Wellington hosted their annual awards earlier this month, celebrating young sporting talent from around the region.
Two athletes from Kāpiti College walked away with top honours, Hannah Stokes who won female Touch Player of the Year and Millie Donald who won female Cyclist of the Year.
For both winners, it was the influence of their fathers that led to their participation and success in their chosen sports.
"I've been playing touch since I was 5 and my dad has coached me from the age of 6-16," Hannah said.
Hannah Stokes, right, with her coach and father Michael Stokes and Kapiti College teammate Jeremiah Mihaere.
Known as "Grubby" around the school and touch community, Michael Stokes has coached touch at Kāpiti College since Hannah started.
"When I finally got a new coach it was a very new experience because he's coached me and my younger sisters and girls' touch at Kāpiti College since I started."
Playing for school in the girls and mixed teams, Hannah has been part of the New Zealand system for three years after success playing in the Kāpiti-Horowhenua U18 team.
Playing women's and mixed, Hannah also successfully made it into the Premier Touch League and was asked to trial for the Youth Trans-Tasman U20 team.
"The team competes against Australia each year, but I just missed out on making it into the team.
"The spot went to someone a little bit older than me, but I still got to trail and am in the New Zealand system."
Watching the College Sport Wellington Awards online with her boyfriend's family, Hannah said, "I was crying with happiness when I found out I had won the award.
"I was with my boyfriend's family, and it was very cool to experience it with them."
For Year 10 student Millie Donald, cycling started when her dad took her to a criterium event in the Hutt.
Millie Donald in action during a road race.
"He took me to a road event when I was about 9 years old and I picked it up from there."
Doing all three disciplines, Millie competes in mountain biking, road and track events.
"There are events all around the country and I just go with my Dad to the ones that we can make."
This year Millie has had success across all the disciplines she has competed in, starting out with the National Road Series where she won the Tasman Junior Tour, also winning overall on GC and taking Queen of the Mountain and Sprint Ace.
She also took home two silver medals at the final event, the Age Group Road Nationals giving her second overall on GC for the series and being the Queen of the Mountain and Sprint Ace winner.
On the track, Millie won an omnium style event at the Wellington Junior Track Championships and in cross country, came second in the U15s at the North Island Schools XC Championships.
At the North Island Schools Road Championships in Cambridge Millie won two silver medals in the Road Race and Criterium.
While a number of races were cancelled due to Covid-19, Millie was still able to compete in Cyclocross, and the YUNCA Junior Tour of Southland where she won the yellow jersey on GC along with the green Sprint Ace jersey, narrowly missing out on winning the QOM jersey on a tie break.
"I like riding with other people, I like going fast, and I'm very competitive, so I like to do good."
Driving home from mountain biking in Wellington on the night of the awards, Millie said, "We were watching it online and the signal kept cutting out as we were driving between Pukerua Bay and Paekākāriki.
"As we were watching they said my name - it's just really nice to be recognised for your achievements and to have lots of people watching it that wouldn't have been able to watch it if it had happened not online."
