33 Raroa students made the long 7 hour drive to Tauranga to take part in the BIGGEST INTERMEDIATE SPORTING EVENT in the world - The Aims Games

With over 9,300 competitors from across NZ, and even some from Australia and the Cook Islands, we were excited be compete against the best of the best in Cross Country and Girls’ Football.

The AIMs Games was an incredible week full of energetic, passionate and persistent young Raroans. The Year 7 girls Cross Country team won a gold medal for their combined individual placings and the year 8 girls Cross Country team won a silver medal for their combined placings. We also won a bronze for an individual placing of 3rd by the talented Sarah Hay. Other placings included 10th place by Jayden Gilchrist for Year 8 boys, as well as multiple placings in the top 20 and 30 for each age group. This was out of approximately 200 runners in each category. An incredible result!

The rest of the week was an an exciting and rewarding Football tournament, where our 14 girls played their hardest to first of all come top two in our pool, then win the quarters, moving into the semi- finals and the grand final. We eventually came second in our pool to Auckland Normal Intermediate, who we would later face in the grand final for the Championship cup. A nail biting final that ended at 0-0 at full time remained at 0-0 after 10 minutes extra time and ended up in a penalty shoot out. A fantastic first save by Olivia Empson put Auckland Normal under extreme pressure, with Raroa eventually winning the final 4-3 on penalty shots.

An incredible end to an incredible week. Thank you so much to all of the parents who gave up their time to come and help make this such a successful week. We cannot do these things without you!

We all wish we could go back and do it all again, and we hope this has formed life long memories as well as strong friendships within and beyond Raroa.