Feilding Moa young men and women were well to the fore at the Manawatu Secondary Schools XC on 15 May held at Manawatu College, Foxton.
Top 10 placings 2019 Cross Country Results – OFFICIAL
Some Stories from the day
Bella falls but doesn’t fail
Bella Ives did a Jill impression (i.e Jack & Jill) by falling down the ridiculously steep downhill in the pine trees. She tumbled to the bottom somehow missing the tree trunks, meanwhile the marshal stationed at the bottom of the hill was already on their phone calling for first aid assistance – ’til Bella bounced to her feet, carried on and secured a silver medal! One tough cookie.
Three way tussle
Pre-race chatter suggested the Senior Boys race promised to be the closest race of the day and it didn’t disappoint. Noah Macdermid hit the pace hard right from the gun and lead Andre Le Pie-Day and Benjamin Wall up the first hill into the trees on the way out. He was equally quick on the steep downhill and had a 10m gap for the time being. Two loops of the wilderness area saw Benjamin dictating the pace up front but with Noah and Andre on his shoulder. That’s how it stayed until it came time to ascend the afore-mentioned ridiculously steep hill. Noah and Benjamin grabbed a quick 20m gap over Andre. As they crested the final hill, with 500m of downhill and flat to the finish, Noah surged to a 5m gap. It was however short-lived, with Benjamin hitting the speed button and winning by 40–50m.
Record breakers
Benjamins win was a new course record. Reuben Duker also set a course record winning the Year 9 boys, Our other winners on the day were Liam Wall 1st in the Intermediate Boys and Stephanie Walker in the Senior Girls – both won easily with daylight a distant second. So four golds to Feilding Moa members.
Podium spots also went to Lucy Evans (3rd, Y9), Nelson Doolan (3rd Int. boys) and Andre Le Pine-Day (3rd Sen. boys).
Congratulations to all.
“we’ve always done it this way”
It remains a mystery why, with modern communications and technology that details of this event were so hard to find, and that times are only recorded for the winner.
I was told schools are given the info and it’s up to them how they communicate it – all I can say is that no school seems to demonstrate much skill in that department! Even parents of athletes were largely in the dark.
Timing an event: We record times for over 100 competitors week in week out at club level, whether they are four years old or seventy. For some reason, year after year, these championships only record the winners time. That’s how it was when I ran interschool XC in the 1970’s – I assume the answer is “we’ve always does it that way”.
It would be great to see someone in the Education sector grab hold of their various major championships (XC, Track & Field and other sports) and really showcase them – and ideal project for a group of students. Just think what could be done with tools such as Social media chatter, previews, drone views, Go Pro, big screen TV, facebook live feed…create a real buzz.
The 2014 event, ahead of the NZSS champs in Palmerston North showed it was possible to do many innovative things – then the next year it was back to Foxton and same old, same very old ways!
