2014 HNHS School Magazine | Page 59

Athletics Georgia Hulls Georgia Hulls has had an outstanding year on the athletics track. At the NZSS champs in Hamilton at the end of 2013, she won both 100m and 200m in the junior grade, winning both races by 2/100th of a second. Next on her list was the Australian Junior Championships in which she won the 200m in the U16 class and was just beaten in the 100m by that margin again, 2/100th of a second. Next it was the NISS Champs in Masterton where she repeated her last years result by winning both the 100m/200m double in the intermediate grade. She was named in the New Zealand team to go to the Oceania Champs in Rarotonga, and not only did she do the double again in the U18 grade, she broke the meet record in both her events. Her 200m PB time would have been good enough, had she been in Glasgow at the Commonwealth Games, to have made the semi-final in the 200m, and had she been at the Youth Olympics, she would have made the final in that event. Tim Keip narrowly missed out on making the final of the senior 200m, being ninth qualifier. Sadly the junior 4x100m relay team, a chance for a medal, folded when Monique Thomson had to withdraw from the team and return home due to a family bereavement. The 4 x 400m junior team ran a creditable 7th. 14 ECNISS Titles Despite not having the services of Georgia Hulls, the team won more titles at the ECNISS Athletic Champs than any other of the 23 schools competing. A fantastic 14 titles were won over a variety of events. Included in the titles were 2 relay titles won by our 4 x 100 junior and senior Girls. Georgia Rathbone was the star, winning 3 individual junior titles as well as a relay title, the 200m, 300m and the high jump. Monique Thomson won the junior long jump and triple jump as well as a relay, as did Jess Ford in the senior grade. Jenna Tidswell also won 3 junior titles, in the 800m, javelin and a relay win. Natalya Taylor in senior and Kayla Redman in intermediate both won javelin titles meaning HNHS had a clean sweep of all the girls’ javelin NZSS Champs events. Tim Keip was the sole boys’ victor, winning the Georgia Hulls effort of winning two gold medals at these championships was an undoubted highlight, but another senior 200m, a title he won last year. The team also had 8 was a wonderful javelin throw from Natalya Taylor saw her seconds and 23 thirds. take silver in the senior class. Natalya was significantly smaller than many of her opponents but threw more than 3 metres further than she had thrown before.