WHS Medal at Maadi Cup - May 2015

Gold medal winners of the Maadi Cup 2015 Jessica Brougham and Kayla Spencer.

Matthew Wright and Nathan Luff winning Bronze.

Wanganui High School went away to Lake Karapiro in March with a strong 27 rowers to compete in the Aon Secondary School Maadi Cup Regatta.

Maadi Cup is the biggest Secondary School Sporting Event with around 2500 competitors together for a week long regatta. Rowers start preparing and training 6 months prior to Maadi with majority of the senior rowers training at 5.30am every morning, plus afternoon trainings.

The commitment, drive and dedication is amazing and finding success at the regattas makes it all worthwhile.

With our senior rowers having come off a successful club season with Aramoho Wanganui Rowing Club we were hoping for that success to continue into the school regatta.

The week long regatta had outstanding weather conditions which certainly helps the rowers to compete well in their races.

 Kayla Spencer and Jessica Brougham completed their winning season with AWRC to win gold in the Girls U18 double sculls. This also gave Kayla and Jessica a trial for the NZ Junior Squad.

WHS also had great success in our Boys U18 Lightweight double sculls with Matthew Wright and Nathan Luff winning Bronze. This was an amazing achievement for the school as it has been 5 years since we have had WHS boys up on the podium.

Coach Ian Weenink was very happy and commended the WHS team on their dedication from the whole squad. Maadi Cup is a huge event with very full days starting at 6.30am in the morning and sometimes not finishing until 6pm at night.

WHS rowing has been growing over the last 5 years with a lot of successful regattas throughout this time. We have a lot of great up and coming rowers coming through the school and we are hoping over the next few years our successes will continue to grow.