A former St Matthew's Collegiate student will be a guest speaker at the Wairarapa Sports Education Trust's annual dinner, be held at the Genesis Recreation Centre in Masterton on Saturday, September 27.
Robyn Wong, who now lives in Wellington, represented New Zealand at mountain biking at the Athens Olympics and is
currently in Beijing where she is part of the athlete support team for the New Zealand Olympics squad there.
Wong will join with New Zealand rugby sevens star and former All Blacks Eric Rush as the main speakers at the dinner which was originally scheduled for September 26 but has been moved to the following day because of a clash of dates.
Her 16th placing in Athens was obviously a major highlight of Wong's very successful mountain biking career. She competed at six world and seven Oceania championships, was twice New Zealand national series champion and placed 14th at the world marathon biking championships in 2003.
She also represented her country in road cycling.
Since retiring from competitive cycling on the international scene Wong has maintained a busy life. She ran her first marathon on the Great Wall of China, has dived with sharks and was one of the few woman to register a sub three-hour ride in the 50km Karapoti mountain bike race.
Wong's work in Beijing will revolve around assisting members of the New Zealand team to achieve their best possible results in their respective events and her address at the WSET dinner, for which tickets are already meeting a heavy demand, will centre on her experiences there.
