Athletics: Schools championships contribute to busy calendar of events at Whanganui’s Cooks Gardens

Promising athlete and recent Whanganui arrival Kaylee Bisschoff in action in her native South Africa.

February and March are busy times at Cooks Gardens with the iconic World Athletics Heritage venue in frequent use.

We do not know how lucky we are with such a world-class facility right in the heart of our CBD. New Zealand athletics tracks, and most overseas, are generally situated at the edge of the city and involve travel to the venue. Like all such assets, they can be taken for granted and the old saying has truth: “We don’t know what we have got until it is gone.”

Last week it hosted the Whanganui Girls’ College championships on Friday and Cullinane College on Wednesday. It was especially pleasing to see Cullinane College returning to Cooks Gardens, giving students the chance to compete at a state-of-the-art facility. It was pleasing to receive positive feedback on their return after a few years away from Cooks Gardens.

“Our staff and students were very thankful for being able to use a world-class facility, and we look forward to competing in the WSS Athletics in early March.”

At the Cullinane championships, Year 12 sprinter Filipe Bayly impressed, taking the 100m/200m double while Year 12 student Ethan Linklater equalled the intermediate boys 400m record by running 1m 01s. This record was set in 2003, Cullinane’s founding year, by Ashley Cuff.

This Tuesday the stadium was packed by the city’s largest secondary school - Whanganui High School - for an action-filled six hours involving the whole school. Athletes to shine on Tuesday included junior sprinter Ethan Wells who took the sprint double, an achievement matched by Kaylee Bisschoff in the intermediate girls.

In the intermediate boys, last year’s Whanganui Schools sprint champion Hayden Steele, then at Rangitīkei College, produced the same 100m/200m double at his new school.

In the senior ranks, seasoned athletes excelled. Damian Hodgson and Thomas Gowan were prominent while Teresa Rennie took four titles (100m, 200m long and high jumps). Intermediate girl jumpers Lulu Dufty, Annabelle Brown and Isla Jones set personal bests in jumping events.

Whanganui City College has its championships at Cooks Gardens next Wednesday and Whanganui Collegiate School holds its postponed traditional Inter House match on Saturday, March 9, with four hours of high-participation team competition.

The school competitions culminate in the Whanganui Secondary Schools Track and Field Championships on Tuesday, March 12. A team representing Whanganui secondary schools will be selected for the North Island Secondary Schools Championships to be held after Easter on April 6-7. It is a pity that a congested month that includes an early Easter necessitates the Whanganui Secondary Schools falling just 48 hours before the Athletics New Zealand Championships in Wellington. Leading athletes must be careful to manage their workload,

Cooks Gardens is a huge asset to our city and it is pleasing there is added value when all our secondary schools are again using the facility. These events are major participation events for the whole school, not just the elite. The participants are children of ratepayers and members of our whole Whanganui community. In November there is similar usage by primary and intermediate schools, ending in younger Age Group Championships for leading athletes and the Tough Kids and Tough Teens providing exciting opportunities for a wide group of excited youngsters.

Just hours after the conclusion of the Whanganui High School Championships on Tuesday the facility was again in use for the weekly club night, incorporating the final event of the Manawatū/Whanganui Centre Championships which had been conducted on the previous two Tuesdays in Whanganui and Palmerston North respectively. Jonathan Maples won his fourth centre title with a classy personal best in the 400m hurdles (53.89s). Juliet McKinlay claimed her fifth title by winning the 300m hurdles (49.44s).

School athletics championships, especially in the younger grades, bring new faces to the sport. One such new face is Kaylee Bisschoff who arrived in Whanganui at the end of last year from South Africa where, in Pretoria, she had shown promise as a hurdler. As mentioned, she won the 100m/200m double in the intermediate grade at the Whanganui High School Championships and added the hurdles for good measure. Last week 14-year-old Bisschoff won the Manawatū/Whanganui 80m hurdles in a slick 12.75s that bodes well for the New Zealand under-16 championships in mid-March and for the New Zealand Schools in December.

Bisschoff is fortunate to have come to a city that has a world-class track, an observatory and an opera house within a few metres of each other in the centre of our city.