Paeroa College waka ama newcomers make top 10 at champs

Paeroa College girls waka ama team competed in the secondary schools nationals for the first time this year, and earned themselves a top 10 position for their event.

The team placed second in the plate finals for the J19 500m at Rotorua’s Tikitapu Blue Lake.

More than 1,530 paddlers from 96 schools competed at the 2016 Te Wānanga o Aotearoa National Secondary School Waka Ama Championships from April 5 to April 8.

Coming from a school with only 250 students, the girls were up against schools more than double their size.

With two 13-year-olds in the team, the seven girls competed in the  16-19-year age group.

Regardless of the age difference the girls’ training times showed promise for a placing at the championships.

“Standing next to those 19-year-olds you could really see the size difference,” coach and Hauraki Waka Ama president Larn Wilkinson said.

Kimiora Ensor, a year 11 paddler in the team, said “our times were showing us that we were going to do really well but once we saw the girls we were up against, aw never mind!”

It took a lot of attitude and commitment to get to the championships.

“There is a lot of commitment to the amount of training required,” Wilkinson said. “But these girls have become role models in the way they act and hold themselves; you can really see the growth in how they’re behaving. Waka ama is a worthwhile cause to keep pushing.”

The girls said the motivation for getting the team together was coach Larn Wilkinson.

“I pushed waka ama at Paeroa College because I wanted people to reconnect with the waterways and utilize them to their fullest,” Wilkinson said.

Wilkinson has been working with waka ama since 1988 and has worked hard to promote the sport.

The goal for the team now is to get the school more involved in the sport by next year when they aim to take out the gold at the championship.