Triathlon: Whanganui Collegiate School takes top honours at schools nationals

The Whanganui Collegiate team took top honours at the New Zealand Schools Triathlon Nationals. Photo / Rob van Dort

Sarah Gibson

Whanganui Collegiate School athletes shone at the New Zealand Schools Triathlon Nationals, with the team taking top honours overall.

After months of training, 37 of the school's triathletes, swimmers, cyclists and runners travelled to New Plymouth to compete as individuals or teams at the nationals under the guidance of coach Gareth Wright.

Hunter Gibson, Aei Fungladda and Jessica Johnstone took to the start line in the under-19 individual race with a big swim into the ports of Taranaki under impressive tugboat water cannons, a sight usually seen in only overseas events. Conditions making for cautious racing saw Hunter put in a solid effort to finish seventh, Aei 15th and Jessica 19th.

In the under-19 teams race Whanganui Collegiate brought home gold medals in both the girls and boys categories along with a second girls team collecting bronze. Strong combinations from the school's swim, athletics and cycling teams proved no match for any other school. WCS national 5km running schools champion George Lambert chased down Hamilton Boys High school to cement his team the gold by nearly a minute.

The under-16 athletes were the biggest team of students from WCS with Palat Permphol and Franca Morrah lining up for the individual race and five teams competing. Again WCS proved way too strong in the boys and girls teams, taking home both golds, a silver and a bronze. Whanganui swim team's Marley Orr, national track cyclist Jack Overweel and national junior runner Daniel Sinclair combined and took out an impressive win by well over 2 minutes. Whanganui swim team's Georgia Abraham, track cyclist Poppy Hobbs and middle distance runner Louise Brabyn dug deep to gain the second gold by just 9 seconds over St Peter's Cambridge.

Young individuals Mathias Pa'a and Lucy Hobbs braved strong surf in the under-13s to finish seventh and 15th respectively and WCS's two under-14s Hector Hewins and Sophie Trott enjoyed the challenge over the swim, bike, run course. The under-14 boys team, Ben Brunton, Beau Booth and Joseph Mack, added the last team gold to the haul of medals.

Building momentum worldwide is the Tag Team event where four-person teams compete over all three disciplines, 200m swim, 5km bike and 1km run. WCS fielded five teams in three age groups with the under-14 and under-19 teams both taking home the bronze medals.

Collecting the overall co-educational team trophy, Whanganui Collegiate School triathlon captain Hunter Gibson and Maddison Gray couldn't have been prouder of all 37 students who took up the challenge to compete at nationals among some of the country's best triathletes. It certainly shows that Collegiate has some talented athletes and were by far the largest school team competing across all the events on offer.