All-rounder Sophie Shallard putting her sporting skills to use

St Peter's Gore all-rounder Sophie Shallard running at the recent Te Anau Enduro event. She is currently training for the NZ Age-Group Swimming Championships in April.

Southland’s Sophie Shallard has been putting her versatile array of sporting skills to good use lately on both land and water.
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The year 11 St Peter’s College, Gore, student recently won the U16 race at the Southland Secondary School Triathlon Championships and then two days later won the U16 Otago/Southland Water Skiing Championships, before returning to school to break three records in distance races at her school’s schools athletics championships.

“Last year I came second in the same event, so it was really good to win this time,” says Sophie about her water skiing win.

The water skiing is a slalom event, competing on one ski at speed in a zigzag course that has six buoys on each side to get around.

For Sophie, water skiing is mainly for fun. “Water skiing is one of the fun things that I do in the weekends and spare time - although we do go down as a group every so often for practice and lessons.”

The age-grade records she broke at her school’s athletics day were the 800m, 1500m and the 3000m.
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She also has a strong sporting background in figure skating and hockey.

Sophie (right) at last year's swimming age-group nationals. Erika Fairweather (centre) was subsequently the youngest athlete at last year's Youth Olympic Games.

​But none of these sports above are her priority.

“Swimming is my main sport,” Sophie explains. “I have been to the swimming age grade nationals twice. The first year I came second in the 400m freestyle and third in the 400m IM [making eight finals overall], and last year I came third in the 400m IM and fourth in the 200m butterfly.”

One of  her main rivals is Kavanagh College, Dunedin swimmer Erika Fairbrother, who represented New Zealand at the Youth Olympic Games in 2018 and was the youngest athlete of all countries in Argentina. “She cleaned up, she won all the races that I placed in!”

Sophie is currently training for this year’s National Age-Group Championships in Wellington from 16-20 April.
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She has been swimming competitively since she was young, and she swims for Hokonui Aquatics and trains locally at the Gore Aquatic Centre for the most part with year 12 St Peter’s male swimmer Xander Marsh.  “But I am also going down to Invercargill once a week to train with the Southland squad ahead of Nationals.
“In the build up to Nationals I am training in the pool six days a week and running on the other day.” 

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Sophie (left) with Southland GHS's Jorja Clallahan after this year's Southland Triathlon Championships.

​How many triathlons has she done? “I have done the Southland secondary schools one for the past two years [winning both years] and I did the Otago-Southland one recently that was the on at the same time as the Wanaka challenge. I came third in that but fourth overall as there was a competitor from Rangi Ruru.”

She missed last weekend’s SISS race in Oamaru as she was competing in the Enduro running race in Te Anau.

What about more triathlons – or duathlons - in the future?

“Last year I realised that my swimming helped my fitness for my running.

“I will have to develop my biking though - the swim and the run are definitely my best parts of triathlon. I do want to do more, but at the moment swimming is my priority.”

Sophie also has experience on the running track at a regional and national level.

“My running picked up last year and I went to the South Islands [SISS Athletics Championships] and I came fourth in the 800m and second in the 1500m.”

She subsequently made the semi-finals of the 800m and the final of the 1500m NZSS Championships in Dunedin in the Junior Girls but admits she was unfit  and underachieved, finishing well outside her PBs in both races.

She says she probably won’t be attending the upcoming SISS Athletics Championships in Nelson at the end of this month owing to a clash with her school ball, which she also missed last year for the same reason. But she hopes to compete in the New Zealand Championships in Wellington in December. “Hopefully I will go this year and I will train harder and get fitter and see how I perform.”

Plus there is also the NZSS Secondary Schools Cross Country Championships in the middle of the year in Timaru, Sophie finishing midfield in the Junior Girls race in Taupo in 2018.

With swimming and running coming together to form two thirds of triathlon, how does water skiing fit in, if at all?

“Water skiing is more about technique. You have got to have good upper body strength. But it is a bit about fitness but more about how you do it.”

Sophie used to compete in figure skating and plays hockey for her school and at age grade level for Southland. “A couple of years ago I went to the figure skating nationals and got second in my grade.”

“I tried to juggle figure skating, swimming, a bit of running and hockey. Ice skating isn’t that big in New Zealand so I placed more priority in swimming.”

As well as sport, Sophie has also started NCEA Level 1 at St Peter’s so schoolwork needs to fit in there somewhere too.
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Last but not least, she thanks her family for their support. “My mum is very dedicated to driving me everywhere! I also go to the hostel when I go to Invercargill to make things easier.”

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