They may have been small in number but the Wairarapa contingent still managed to make their presence felt at the national secondary schools athletic championships in Christchurch last weekend.
The 13-strong team returned home with three bonze medals, two of them to Kuranui College sprinter Michael Wilson and the other to
Wairarapa College walker Zach Sinclair.
Wilson was third in both the senior boys 100m and 200m finals.His 100m effort was especially noteworthy as he was involved in a blanket finish which saw him miss second by a mere one one-thousands of a second.
Sinclair, a fifth former, was one of the younger competitors in the 3000m open walk and his third placing there augured well for future appearances at this level.
His twin brother, Cameron Sinclair, just missed making the semi-finals of the senior boys 200m and another hard luck story was that of Ellen Schaef of St Matthews who looked to have third placing in the senior girls 400m parcelled up until she stumbled and fell near the finishing line.
The Paine sisters, Corrina and Vicky, of Wairarapa College both had sixth placings to their credit, Corrina in the junior girls 800m where she ran a season's best time of 2min 23secs and Vicky in the junior girls 400m, where she also recorded a season's best time of 60.15secs.
Other members of the Wairarapa team, all of whom made semi-finals in their respective events, were Courtney Faifeita (Wairarapa College), Samantha Cates (St Matthews Collegiate), Ngatiti Sami (Kuranui College), Renee Braggins (Kuranui College), William Simpson (Wairarapa College), Jessica Rekke (St Matthews Collegiate) and Caitlin Campbell (Kuranui College).
Meanwhile, Team Wairarapa are aiming for a top three placing in the junior team's section when the national club athletics finals are held at Wanganui this weekend.
They qualified for the decider after finishing second to Palmerston North in the central region zone and officials are confident their team of 20 athletes aged under 18 years, is capable of being amongst the medals at Wanganui.
