So much has been going on in the world of sport at St Margaret’s College in the last couple of weeks. From croquet to waka ama, our SMC ambassadors have bounced, swum, run, driven, biked and rowed their way to great heights. To quote Mrs Patchett, “Fabulous. We are flying the red and white across the country, with some incredible results.” Go SMC, keep up the good work!

Athletics Day
Last Thursday we had yet another stunning day for our girls. A colourful array of SMC girls made their way to Christ’s College for our athletics day. Amongst a ton of sunscreen and house colours our athletes ran, jumped, threw and competed for places and of course the all-essential house points.
2019 Final Placing results are attached.

Croquet
Every Wednesday afternoon a group of eight SMC girls walks across to the United Croquet Club in Hagley Park. With our big sister/little sister ethos we have here at St Margaret’s, our senior girls happily take the youngest member of our croquet team under their wing, as they escort her to the games. Philippa Porter, the president of the United Croquet Club, is an old girl from our school. She very kindly invited us to participate in the club and the girls are working towards the 2019 Canterbury Secondary Schools Golf Croquet Championship on the 13th March. We wish our girls luck for this event.
Petra Lewis and Molly Campbell in the photos.

Cycling
Jenna Borthwick (Y11) smashes it again!!! Breaking a New Zealand record in the U17 2000m Individual Pursuit at the Vantage Age Group Track Cycling National Champs.
“I wasn’t expecting it at all, it was pretty amazing,” Borthwick said. “As a sprinter, this wasn’t an event I was targeting, I thought I’d just have a go and see how I went.” 
Jenna’s success has continued at the Age Group Track at Nationals over the last few days. Jenna has sent us a report on her fantastic progress.
I had an amazing week racing with Canterbury and I exceeded all my expectations. Out of 8 events, I won 6 gold medals, 1 silver, and a 4th place. I broke 4 New Zealand records, I hold all of the U17 girls' individuals timed event records.

2km Individual pursuit- Gold (NZ record)
500m time trial- Gold (NZ record)
5km scratch race- silver
Match sprint- Gold (NZ record in qualifying)
7.5km Points race- 4th
500m Team sprint- Gold (NZ record) with Amelia Sykes
3km Team pursuit- Gold with Amelia Sykes, Charlotte Spurway, and Mikaela Grant
7.5km Madison- Gold with Charlotte Spurway

AMAZING!!! Jenna, you are a legend and have done so well. We are very proud of you. Keep up the hard work.

Flipper Ball
Every Tuesday lunchtime we have a group of junior girls learning the skills needed for Water Polo. Flipper Ball is a very good starting point for building the girls confidence in the water. They learn how to throw and catch the colourful balls using only the one hand, as well as the art of learning to tread water.
Such a glorious way to spend a sunny Tuesday lunchtime.

Ministock - Owner/Driver
Georgia Dobson-Cox. (Y10) No 66OX has had an exciting weekend. She has been named most up and coming youth driver and if you look closely at the photo you will see her impressive looking trophy. You may also note the slogan in the photo is also proudly displayed on the back of her race car. Georgia has described her love of racing as, “Putting the Power into empowering girls.” She writes, “The best part about being a race car driver is no matter, boy or girl, you’re all treated exactly equal once your overalls and helmet go on, and your seatbelts are tightened. The only person who is responsible for winning or losing that race is me. I love how it has improved my science and maths because I now understand why I need to know about the apex of corners and negative camber on wheels. I love that I do this with my dad and my brothers. I can change my own oil, check and adjust my tyre pressures and legally drive (over the speed limit🤣)."Thanks to Oxford Speedway for their time in developing the youth. We are the future of speedway.
Georgia

Netball 
Lina Pale and Karereatua Williams have been named in the Aotearoa Maori Netball team to play at the Pacific Cup tournament in Auckland from 21-24 March.
Cook Island Netball in conjunction with the High Wire Charitable Trust in Papakura is hosting 6 teams to battle it out over a 3-day tournament which will help prepare the Pacific Nation teams in their lead-up to the Netball World Cup in July 2019.
To receive an invitation to this tournament is a huge honour as it will be a crucial component in our lead up to the International Secondary Schools tournament in May. Open Trials were recently held in Palmerston North and Auckland and a squad of 15 girls have been chosen.

Polo
Our St Margaret’s A team competed in the South Island SUPA polo tournament, out at Waireka polo farm in Sefton. As you can see from the photos the day was stunning with perfect conditions. Our girls Isabel Gould, Georgia Levey, Petra Green, Skye Turner and their ponies, were beautifully turned out on the day. Well done girls for representing St Margaret’s College.

Rowing
Twizel once again turned the weather on for us last weekend. The last big regatta before the Maadi cup, the Meridian SISS champs, gave our girls the opportunity to show us what they are made of. Our girls won the prestigious U18 8 gold and the Kate Strachan trophy. Plus they bought home the U17 8 Gold, U16 4 Silver, U15 8 Bronze and U16 8 Bronze. Congratulations to you all.
An impressive total of seven A finals and three B finals.

U18 8 Gold and Kate Strachan trophy
Rosa Foster, Lucy Botting, Charlotte Darry, Anna Wilson, Kate Harris, Gaby McKellar, Emma Roberts, Sophie Lightbourne and cox Grace Mitchell.

U 17 8 Gold
Rosa Foster, Lucy Botting, Charlotte Darry, Anna Wilson, Emma Parker, Caroline Wells, Victoria Voice, Amelia Parker, and cox Emily Young.

U16 4 Silver
Georgia Dawson, Isla Fulton, Victoria Voice, Emma Arnott, and cox Millie Dobson.

U 15 8 Bronze
Alice Davidson, Olivia Studholme, Maddy Meates, Grace Farrell, Kate Van Peer, Felicity Pye, Amy Cawte, Charlotte Parker, and cox Grace Mitchell.

U16 8 Bronze
Georgia Dawson, Isla Fulton, Rosa Foster, Victoria Voice, Emma Arnott, Grace Glassey, Isabelle Scrymgeour, Charlotte Parker, and cox Claudia Bethell.
We wish all our rowers the very best of luck for Maadi this year.

Also in Rowing news;
Last Saturday our rowing team had a Boat Blessing and Naming Ceremony, to name their three new boats. Thank you to Peg for blessing these special boats. The boats were named after two old SMC girls and a parent.

Natalie Bocock- Natalie coxed for SMC for four years from 2010 - 2014 and has been representing NZ for the last four years. Her most recent success was coxing the Men’s U23 four to a silver medal at the U23 World Championships.

Olivia Mendonca- Olivia rowed for SMC for four years from 2011 - 2015. In her final year, she represented NZ at the Junior World Championships in Rio. She is currently on a rowing scholarship at Duke University in the USA.

Dimity - Dimity was a parent who cooked for the team for two years and in July 2010 was tragically taken from us in a ski accident.

Speedway
Grace Roxburgh in year 10, is our SMC speed demon. For three race seasons, she has competed in the 11-14 years age group during the summer, out at the speedway track at Ruapuna on a Saturday night and Ashburton and Ellesmere on a Sunday. With her father being the president and her mother the secretary of the club, it is very much a family affair. Grace races a Quarter Midget, which she describes as a very exciting category. True to their name the cars are approximately one-fourth the size of their standard counterparts. Grace plans to work her way up to a three-quarter midget, a TQ and a full midget. Grace has many notable achievements,

2017-2018 Season
3rd CTRA South Island Champion
3rd Ruapuna Speedway Season Points
3rd Value Cars Champion
2nd Value Cars Best pairs
3rd Canterbury Champs

2018-2019 season
3rd Ruapuna Speedway Feature ( Podium)
2nd Ruapuna Speedway Feature (Podium)
We congratulate Grace so far and we look forward to reporting on her endeavours in the future.

Swim Sports
We had a glorious day for our Year 4-6 swimming sports last week. Well done to all those girls who swam and to everyone who helped out on the day. Placings are attached below. 

Tennis  
Winners of SISS
Meet our South Island Secondary Schools Tennis Champions! A great win for the SMC team after overcoming Rangi 4-2, and Waimea 6-0. The game v Rangi was 2-2 after the singles games but SMC took the lead winning both doubles games. Huge congratulations to you all! #empoweringgirls

Also on the Tennis front, absolutely amazing news - Abby Mason has been selected into the New Zealand Junior Federation Cup tennis team. Abby will represent NZ at the Asia-Oceania qualifying event from 15-20 April. Congratulations Abby we are so proud of this amazing achievement. 🙌 🎾

Tennis Hot Shots
Every Tuesday lunchtime Andrew Falck, our SMC tennis coach takes a group of girls from years 1-6. This is the fourth year in a row that Andrew has run our Hotshots programme. As you can see from the photos, the girls are learning great tennis skills whilst having fun. Hand/eye coordination improves with various activities and the senior girls are on hand to help. This is all part of adding to the girl's service hours by giving back to our SMC community. Who knows there may be the next Serena Williams amongst us.

Triathlon
What a contrast 24 hours can make in the weather. From a stinking hot Athletics day on Thursday to a chilly, dreary Triathlon on Friday. Eight SMC girls went over to Sumner. We had two teams of three competing. Cara Birch and Claudia Hundleby competed individually. A big congratulations to Claudia Hundleby who came third in the Girls U14 Individual Triathlon. A huge thank you to all the parents who supported the girls, helping them get to their places in time and to Sharon Lloyd who was a marshall at the event.

Volleyball 
Mainland Champs
Our SMC Volleyballers showed fabulous team spirit here in Christchurch. Our Senior A team were placed 5th in Div 1. Our Junior A team competed in Div 2, with our Senior B placing 4th. A huge congratulations to the girls, their coaches and of course their supporters.

Waka Ama
A huge thank you to Julie Seymour who has been working with our Waka Ama girls. They had fabulous results at the weekend, well-done girls. Julie writes, “I took a lovely group of 16 Year 13's to the Canterbury Secondary Schools Waka Ama Championships today, at Lake Rua. A bit of a nippy day, but the girls had a fantastic time. Rosie Averill, Olivia Williems, Olivia Wilson, Grace Flint and Sarah Cosgrove won the W6 senior girls 250m. They then combined with Courtney Peters, Harriet Kennelly, Emma Taylor, Annalida Jaegar, Mia Gamble and Amelia Tilman to win the W12 senior girls 250m. Our extra girls Brooke Connnolly, Victoria Kay, Lucy Ryan and Hazel Montgomery combined with St Thomas's in the mixed W12 and also won.
There were 11 teams in the Senior girls 250m, only 3 in the W12 senior girls and 7 teams in the W12 mixed. So not massive numbers, but still a mighty effort by our girls and some very close races. Very tired girls at the end of the day, as they had 7 races each.”
Great results but more importantly what wonderful girls and ambassadors for SMC.

Sport Canterbury and Waimairi School would like to invite you to “How to raise a champion: balance is better” event Thursday 28 March, 6.30pm (doors open at 6 pm), Waimairi School Hall
The event will be hosted by Sport Canterbury. Hear how we as parents can actively support our children, to become ‘champions’ i.e. not necessarily the absolute best at something but rather the best version of themselves.
The speaking line up includes some of our local sporting talents such as Andrea Hewitt (professional triathlete & medalist) and Anton Cooper (Mountain Biking Champion & medalist). They’ll present their personal experiences in becoming ‘champions’.
Come along to what promises to be an interesting and informative evening.
To buy your ticket copy and paste this link.
https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/how-to-raise-a-champion-balance-is-better-tickets-56868307639
Please note this will be a popular event and there are limited tickets available.
We look forward to seeing you there!
If you have any questions please contact Pip Ives 027 733 6982 or Rebecca Hellberg-Walker 021 0212 7272 

As always please feel free to contact us at the sports office, if you have any exciting sports news that you would like to share with our St Margarets community. We would love to include news across all sporting codes so that we can all see just how fabulous our SMC girls really are.

sport@stmargarets.school.nz