While the sporting world will be looking to the forthcoming Olympics starting on Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, or closer to home to the Super Rugby Final in Wellington, over 500 New Zealand athletes will be gathering at the Auckland Domain for the New Zealand Cross Country Championships on Sunday.
It is pleasing to see the Manawatu/Wanganui Centre fielding more runners and importantly have teams competing in both male and female under 18 grades with Whanganui runners contributing significantly to both teams. I have said many times in this column the importance of team competition in cross country.
Sadly many small centres have failed to put a team together and have not realised that being part of a team encourages larger fields.
It is interesting to note that the combined number of runners in the Under 20 and Under 18 fields in both genders is only 50 percent of the size of just the senior boys field at the New Zealand Secondary Schools in Rotorua in June where so many ran because of the team nature of the competition. The quality at the top of each field at the weekend is there but sadly not a larger supporting cast of runners.
The Conder family is well represented and are almost a team of their own. Robert and Paula compete in the 40-44 grade with son Christian in the Under 20 Grade and Thomas starting in the Under 18 grade.