Athletics: Rain fails to dampen experience for Rotorua Colgate Games athletes

Hamish Chapman, 8, (left), Cooper Simes, 10, Vesty Simes, 7, Anja Crombie, 12, Hayden Chapman, 11, (front), Trelise Howard, 10. Photo/Ben Fraser

Some of Rotorua's future track and field stars have competed against the best in their age groups at the North Island Colgate Games.

Gisele Howard, 13, Anja Crombie, 12, Cooper Simes, 10, Vesty Simes, 7, Hayden Chapman, 11, and Hamish Chapman, 8, represented the Lake City Athletic Club at the event at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland at the weekend.

Unfortunately team member Trelise Howard, 10, will have to wait another year to compete at the Games after injuring her leg a day before the event and could not take part. She showed great team spirit, however, because she made the most of the experience and cheered on her teammates.

Lake City Club manager Rebecca Howard said although none of the Rotorua athletes won top three medals, in a field stacked with the country's best track and field juniors, it was a valuable experience and many of them were awarded ribbons for making the finals in their events.

She said the games were like a "mini Olympics" in which the children took part in a parade at the start of the weekend.

"This year was especially special, being the 40th anniversary of the Games. All the kids got commemorative medals.

"All our athletes did well, considering the high level of competition, especially from the Auckland clubs who competed which made it more challenging for everyone else. Trelise was disappointed because she has been training a lot, but that's sport and she took it well," Howard said.

The event had its difficulties when a huge storm swept through Auckland on the opening day, Friday. The only event that was held after the opening ceremony was the G12 400m preliminaries, before the storm took hold. The rest of Friday was cancelled and the Friday programme was incorporated into Saturday and Sunday.

Howard said the way organisers dealt with the disruption was "very impressive".

"They managed to still include all the events, some were timed finals rather than heats and semifinals, so none of the kids missed out. They have more than 150 volunteers who do such a good job and make it a really professionally run event," she said.

Gisele said the games were good and "really hard".

"It's good to go against tough competition because here we don't have much, but there it's all the top people. I get to see my friends as well, who I've competed against before. This was the sixth time I've competed," she said.

Cooper also said he enjoyed the tough competition.

"I just think about what I'm doing during the race, not anyone else. My favourite race is the 100m."

Meeting manager Fiona Maisey was pleased with how it all worked out.

"We survived, I think we'll do a new T-shirt, 'I survived Colgate Games'. Day one was washed out which was very disappointing, but we did manage on Saturday through a mammoth effort to get through all events, every child has had their event and by Sunday it was absolutely beautiful."