Trident High School looking forward to NZ Secondary Schools Multisport Championships

The Trident High School team from last year’s NZSS Multisport Championships in Cromwell

Whakatane’s Trident High school is one of a number of schools entering students in this weekend’s New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports (NZSS) Multisport Championships, as part of the Thermatech 3D Rotorua Multisport Festival.

The NZSS championships are being held as part of the 25 km Grassroots Multisport Challenge, held in conjunction with several other events including the feature 50 km New Zealand multisport open championship race.

The 25 km race includes a one-lap paddle (4.5 km) of the Blue Lake followed by a 15 km mountain bike ride straight up hill into Whakarewarewa Forest and then a 5.5 km trail run through nearby Redwoods Forest to the finish.

There are six secondary schools titles up for grabs, these being: Junior Boys and Girls (U14), Intermediate Boys and Girls (U16) and Senior Boys and Girls (U19).

Participants in the race have confirmed their entry from a wide range of North Island secondary schools - including some 15 entrants from Trident High School.

Last year Trident High School students enjoyed individual success in this corresponding event that was held in Cromwell in the South Island.

“We ended up with three national titles from last year’s NZSS multisport event in Cromwell,” said Trident High School Sports Co-ordinator Helen Dobbin. “We won the senior boys, the senior girls and the junior boys races.”

“Multisport had been big at our school for a while now. There was a small multisport team when I first came on board 10 years ago and now multisport and adventure racing are really popular.”

“We opted not to go to the recent NZSS Adventure Racing Championships because it was in the middle of the school holidays, but we have just had a team that came fourth at the Hillary Challenge.”

The 15th annual Hillary Challenge, held at the Tongariro National Park last week, was won by Thames High School, ahead of the combined New Plymouth Boys/Girls High School team in second, the combined Whangarei Boys/Girls High School team in third and Trident High School in fourth.

Twelve mixed boys and girls teams took part, including the 2014 Australian champions St Leonard’s College, Melbourne.

Helen said that the Trident High School students enter as many multisports and adventure racing events as they can. “They then do Get2Go, which is the junior version of the Hillary Challenge – which Trident won last year - and then the Hillary Challenge.”

Last year’s senior boys winner at Cromwell, Hayden Wilde, is already thinking big in his chosen sport.

This weekend Year 13 student Hayden is travelling with the Trident team to Rotorua, but he’s forgone the chance to defend his national secondary schools title and has entered in the Premier 50 km event.

“This weekend he’s testing himself against the big guns of multisport such as [former Onslow College, Wellington student] Richard Ussher and [recent cross-town Whakatane High School student] Sam Clark – he’s going to see how he goes against the top multisporters in New Zealand.”

Ussher is a five-time Coast-to-Coast champion and is now the race director, while Clark finished second in the Coast-to-Coast earlier this year.

“Hayden has come through the ranks and he has decided that multisport in his sport. Recently there was a big multisport festival called the Waihi Golden Nugget and Hayden, as a 17-year old, won it outright.”

As well as Hayden in the feature 50 km race, Helen said that Trident High School will have a few boys in the mix but added that the nature of the sport makes it open and really competitive. “You just don’t know how the competitors from other schools will go.

“I’ve got two girls, Kaitlin Blackwood and Bernadette Prout, who will be in the Intermediate Girls division who are just amazing runners and adventure runners and have been in a few adventure race teams already.

“It’s an exciting sport for our students, but the logistics of it can be full on, but the school’s really supportive. We have every vessel you can imagine up the river – but it’s fantastic to see everyone involved.”

There’s no shortage of role models in the Eastern Bay of Plenty for these young athletes.

“We seem to produce some really good athletes, like kayaker Lisa Carrington and mountain biker Karen Hanlen – and when you put it all together you’ve got multisport.”

The Trident High School team traveling to Rotorua this weekend this weekend is:

Senior Boys: Dean Morgan, Jake Smith, Robert Lengkeek, Senior Girls:  Tiahna Braithwaite Intermediate boys: Alex Coventry, Oliver Thompson, Oliver Dobbin, Jack Du Toit, Tim Olthuis  Intermediate Girls:  Kaitlin Blackwood, Bernadette Prout, Renae Morgan  Junior Boys:  Regan Wilson, Hunter Billings  and Keeley MCChesney  and Hayden Wilde in the Open 50km race.  Also - Rik Olthuis (half marathon)

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