At the start of this year, a group of Years 10 and 11 girls took up dragon boating.

None of them had ever been dragon boating before, and the season began with a few nerves and a lot of laughter. After their first experience on the river, they had a lot of aching muscles and a new love. They also had a mascot, having seen a seal on their travels. With a mere six weeks of experience in the sport (and only one of those weeks with a full team of 11 people), the girls entered the Aoraki Dragon Boat Schools Challenge at Lake Rua on 8th March. Here they competed in two different types of racing – a 250m sprint and a 500m turn challenge, with two heats and a final in each.

The team struggled in the 250m sprint heats against teams with much more experience, but they worked incredibly hard and in each race, they improved on their performance. In the final, when competing against other teams with the same amount of training, they came 2nd in an incredibly close photo-finish.

The 500m turn challenge hadn’t been expected and they hadn’t practised for it, but the team took it in their stride. Once again they worked together and pushed themselves, and kept improving their times. This led to another 2nd placing in the final of the ‘newcomers’ teams.

The positivity and sportsmanship shown by the whole team was fantastic, and a credit to both them and the school. They represented the Kaiapoi High School values throughout the short season and did us proud in the competition.

The team would like to thank all the parents who supported them through the season and at the challenge, and a huge thanks to Reon Tiweka for his fantastic coaching and sweeping skills.