Canterbury Athletics, Open Water Swim Series, Ice Hockey, Touch

Canterbury Athletics

Sam Harris and Reece Chalklen did well at the Canterbury Athletics Championships, held in Timaru, 20 & 21 February.

Sam came first place in Long Jump, jumping 6.02m; second in Triple Jump, jumping 12.59m; and 5th in 200m sprints with a time of 24.7 seconds.

Reece came second in High Jump with a jump of 170cm.

Sam also competed in his first National Athletics Championships, held in Dunedin the weekend of 5 and 6 March, competing in the Under-18 category, and as a Canterbury representative.

He came 5th in Triple Jump with a personal best of 12.75 metres, 6th in Long Jump with 6.08m, and got a new personal best in 200m of 23.95 seconds. 

Open Water Swim Series

William Simmons competed in the recent Fit & Abel KPMG Open Water Swim series. The series had eight races, the last race on Wednesday 10 February. William's consistency saw him take the overall title in the 1km open water race series. This was a fantastic achievement for considering he was competing in open grade fields and, as a 13-year-old had to get dispensation from the race organisers to compete against adult swimmers.

Ice Hockey

Ryan Fraser was selected to play in the New Zealand Under-18 Ice Hockey team to play in an International Ice Hockey Federation Tournament (IIHF) Division IIIB in South Africa in February 2016. Ryan played as a Defenceman and was one of eight players selected from Canterbury with others from Queenstown, Alexandra, Dunedin, Auckland and two expats from Canada making up a team of 20 players. The Division IIIB Tournament consisted of teams from New Zealand, Hong Kong and South Africa.

The New Zealand team played Hong Kong and South Africa twice and were undefeated in their four games. They had only nine goals scored against them and scored 30 goals against the other teams. The games were live-streamed and supporters all over the world were able to follow their progress.

As the winner of Division IIIB New Zealand has now been promoted to Division IIIA, which they will play in March 2017. They will be competing against teams from Bulgaria, Mexico, Australia, Israel, Turkey and Taipei.

Congratulations to Ryan and the rest of the New Zealand Team on their great effort in promoting New Zealand Ice Hockey to the higher division.

Ryan will continue to play ice hockey this year as a member of the Canterbury Under-20 Team and will train with the Canterbury Red Devils Team in the Men's National League.

Touch News

Well done to the boys who played for Canterbury representative teams in the recent Junior Touch Nationals at Hagley Park: Mesiah Asi (Under-15), Tyreice Tuilau (Under-15 co-captain), Nathaniel Bolton (Under-17 captain) and Glen Beardsley (Under-17). Also well done to Mr Keats who won gold for the Canterbury Over 30’s team at Nationals. Lastly, congratulations to Nethaniel Bolton for playing his 100th game for Shirley BHS. An awesome accomplishment that has been achieved only by three other players in the history of Shirley BHS Touch.