Gold and Silver for College at North Island Year 7 and 8 Cycling Championship

Saint Kentigern College continued its proud tradition of performing well at this event, with 17 cyclists competing at the Taupo Motor Racing Track. Weather conditions were very good in Taupo for the Team Time Trials, with a cold but light wind. In the team time trials the College fielded one Year 8 Girls team and three Year 8 Boys teams, with all teams well-drilled and holding good pace lines throughout the 16km time trials. 

Our Year 8 A team of Jacob Hannan, James Archibald, Cameron Manley and Caleb Atkinson took out the Gold Medal with a comprehensive victory of 32 seconds over the next fastest team, who had previously beaten them at Cambridge by 55 seconds. This is a sign of hard work and great team effort put in over the season.    The Boys B Team of Zane Adamson, Connor McKenzie, Zac Cantell-Roberts and Michael Lindsay came 4th with a solid performance.

Our Year 8 Girls team of Sarah Cappel, Annabelle Waterworth, Olivia Overfield and Abigail Houghton rode exactly to plan finishing second in their division, narrowly missing out on Gold by 7 seconds.   This reflects a significant improvement over the North Island Secondary School Championships in Cambridge earlier this year where they finished 4th closing the gap to the winning team by 1min 20 seconds.

The afternoon saw large fields of cyclists competing in the individual road race events in conditions that cooled considerably and with the wind strengthening.  In the Year 7 Girls, Emma Hannan put in a gutsy effort as the sole Saint Kentigern rider finishing 5th. Similarly in the boys’ event, Campbell Jordan was pipped for bronze in the bunch sprint and finished 4th.  Both great efforts for first year cyclists. 

In the Year 8 Girls, all four of our cyclists rode extremely well, sticking to team strategy resulting in Olivia Overfield finishing 2nd and Sarah Cappell just missing out on Bronze and finishing 4th closely followed by Annabelle Waterworth in 6th place.

In the Boys’ Year 8 Road Race, again the College featured prominently in the main bunch in what was quite a strategic race with numerous breaks and attacks with James Archibald securing Silver and Jacob Hannah 5th, after both riding very strongly. Zac Cantell-Roberts finished 9th and both , Zane Adamson and Connor McKenzie finished just behind the main bunch.  Unfortunately Caleb Atkinson had a rather nasty crash, however, we are pleased to report not suffering any major injuries and keen to be back on his bike.

Kindly written by Mr Adamson & Mr Lindsay, Parent Coaches

Gold Medal:  Year 8 A Boys’ team: Jacob Hannan, James Archibald, Cameron Manley and Caleb Atkinson

Silver Medal: Year 8 Girls’ team: Sarah Cappel, Annabelle Waterworth, Olivia Overfield and Abigail Houghton

Silver Medal: Year 8 Girls’ Road Race: Olivia Overfield

Silver Medal: Year 8 Boys’ Road Race: James Archibald