It certainly wasn’t a slow start to the year for the Paeroa Amateur Athletics Club, which took 22 athletes to compete at the North Island Colgate Games on January 9-11 at Tauranga Domain.
But the young athletes didn’t just compete, a few of them also swept up medals.
Eleven-year-old Liam Rawnsley entered the grade 11 long jump event and told The Profile he set a goal of 4.80m before the competition, but “I never expected to jump more than that”.
However, his best jump was the first of three at 4.81m which secured him a gold medal.
The long jumper said he was “so relieved” when his Dad showed him the final results and “I’d won.”
The young athlete also snapped up a bronze medal for the high jump event.
“I couldn’t believe it when I cleared 1.45m in the high jump, I’ve never made that height before, so I was really surprised,” he said.
“We had a really big team from Paeroa this year so it was heaps of fun hanging out with everyone and cheering each other on.”
The best part about athletics, according to Liam, was setting new personal bests and getting fitter.
“I make heaps of friends from all over the place and everyone is really nice and encouraging.”
Meanwhile, Kahn Reddish also snapped up a bronze medal for his shotput achievement of 9.49m.
For the first time in around 30 years, Paeroa was able to put forward a grade 14 4x100m relay team, club spokesperson Sarah Rawnsley said.
“They qualified second place in their heat and came 7th in the final.”
The team was made up of James Rawnsley, Kian Rangihika, Wilson Slavic and Conner Huitema.
Club president David Rawnsley said the club struggled to retain athletes as they reached college age.
“To have two new boys join the Club this season meant we had enough for a relay team. Our goal was to reach the finals, and we achieved that,” he said.
“As it was the last event, on the final day of competition, we were all immensely proud to see our team perform and represent the club so well in front of a packed stadium.”
By DAVIDDA HIKATANGATA
