Georgie is now in the English Hockey Development programme, but it was clear to me that her athleticism has stood her in good stead. I will be following her hockey career with interest.
After training Blackwood drew my attention to the success of former Collegiate team mate Max Attwell who had just won the Oceania Decathlon. Attwell is an athlete who came into the sport as a serious athlete in Year 12.
I quickly saw the potential as a decathlete and encouraged him into this demanding event. His first experience in combined events came in his final year when he finished second in the New Zealand Junior Championship. His score of 5530 points remains a Wanganui Collegiate record.
He made the New Zealand team to the Oceania Championships two months later where he won the Oceania Junior Octathlon title with a solid performance which included a 1.99 metre high jump that seriously threatened Scott Newman's long established 2 metre Collegiate record which still stands today 20 years later.
At the end of his final year at school in 2014 Attwell bowed out of secondary school competition at the New Zealand Schools Championships at Cooks Gardens where he won the 300 metre hurdles and was in the winning 4x100 metre and 4x400 metre relay teams.
Attwell went on to Canterbury University and came under the wing of leading coach Terry Lomax who has supervised and mentored a sound development programme with a series of progressive personal bests and solid development of the many disciplines of Decathlon.
This progress included a gold at this year's New Zealand Championships with a personal best 6662 points which he increased to 6823 points in Sydney a month later. Now after only eight weeks of build- up he has won in Suva with a new best of 6975 points.
What was remarkable about the performance in Suva was the fact that there was no real depth of competition with Attwell winning seven of the 10 events. A strong 3.3 metre head wind in the 100 metres made the opening event hard but nevertheless he still ran 11.38 seconds. He had a decathlon best in long jump, a solid 1.98 metres in high jump ending the day with the usual strong 400 metres.
In day two he had a best hurdles and ended the competition with a front running effort in the 1500 metres in 4 minutes 22 seconds with the rest of the field a long way back. The points gained against little real opposition, with less than favourable winds, left him only 75 points adrift of the World University qualifying mark. Attwell is clearly an athlete with an exciting future and has transferred well from school to adult sport.
I hope that all the currently successful young athletes in Whanganui either stay in track and field or cross country running, or transfer their considerable skills to other sports.
There are too many successful school sportsmen and women who leave sport far too early before they reach their true potential.
