School crews meet to compete - February 2015
STANDOUTS: Wanganui High School's Jessica Brougham and Kayla Spencer will be two of the leading local rowers to compete at the school championships today.
If rowing in Wanganui is to capitalise on its recent success on the national and international stages, it needs second-tier events such as today's Wanganui school championships to flourish.
That is the feeling of Aramoho Wanganui Rowing Club head coach Ian Weenink, who also runs the rowing programmes at Wanganui High School and Nga Tawa Diocesan School.
Those schools, alongside crews from Cullinane College, will be competing on the Whanganui River in 2000m races with visiting crews from Hutt Valley HS, Wellington Girls, Scots College, Sacred Heart Girls, Francis Douglas Memorial College and others.
For the 45 Wanganui High School students, the largest local group, it will be the chance to show off their new uniforms, provided by a grant from Pub Charities.
Of the 24 Aramoho club members who starred last weekend at the Bankstream NZ Rowing Champs at Twizel, only a handful will be turning out at this level.
WHS' Kayla Spencer will compete in the under-18s, Jessica Brougham in the under-17s and Talia Sua at under-16 level.
At Lake Ruataniwha a week ago, Spencer and Brougham earned a bronze medal in the club coxless quad sculls, teaming in a composite crew with Sacred Heart's Ella Toa, who will also represent her school tomorrow.
The other Aramoho members are either older or have moved on to larger national development programmes.
Weenink said the Wanganui School Championships have often been on-and-off over recent years, depending on participation numbers.
However, a number of local club rowers who are just starting out will spend their Saturdays training and learning, without being pushed into competition with their senior clubmates.
That was why having another tier of competition below interclub, regional and national events was so important for those first timers, Weenink said.
"They need these lead-up regattas.
"This is the development team, in a sense.
"They can compete at these regattas and maybe we need more of these things."
Starting at 9am, the first two hours of races on the river will be the heats for the under-16-18 boys' and girls' sculls - singles, doubles and quadruples.
The finals for those who qualified, plus straight finals in the smaller fields for the coxed pairs, fours, eights, and quadruples, will then continue on till just after 5pm.