St Paul’s Collegiate School’s rowers made their mark on the water at the 2016 Aon Maadi Cup regatta in Twizel. The team secured an outstanding eight A-finals and two B-finals, which included one gold medal and two silver medals. This placed St Paul’s 14th out of the 120 schools that competed in the secondary schools ranking.
Tom Seuren (Year 11) and Max Dobbe (Year 11) won silver in the U15 double sculls and gold in the boys’ novice U18 double sculls just an hour later.
The Novice girls’ U18 coxed four – Georgia Dobbe (Year 12), Olivia Warlow (Year 12), Grace Watson (Year 11), Alice Emeny (Year 11) and cox Victoria Chanwai (Year 11) – won a silver medal in a down-to-the-wire race.
“The crew had a slow start and were fourth at the 1000m, but produced a trademark barnstorming finish to overhaul Howick in the last few strokes to take out the silver,” said St Paul’s Head Coach Andy Hardcroft.
Following the regatta, Josh Balme (Year 13) was selected to trial for the New Zealand Junior Rowing Team.
A-final results
- Josh Balme and Shaun Cox (Year 13) – sixth in the boys’ U18 coxless pair.
- Josh Balme, Shaun Cox, Tom Coleman (Year 13), Hamish Haycock (Year 13) and cox Blaire Fullerton-Smith (Year 12) – sixth in the boys’ U18 coxed four.
- Kate Littlejohn (Year 12) – fourth in the U16 girls’ single sculls.
- Georgia Dobbe and Olivia Warlow – fifth in the U18 girls’ novice double sculls.
- Max Dobbe, Tom Seuren, Samuel Harcourt (Year 10), Henry Brown (Year 10) and cox Sarah Best – fourth in the boys’ U15 quad sculls.
B-final results
- Sinead and Paris Kingston-White (Year 13) – sixth in the girls’ U18 double sculls.
- Kate Littlejohn – sixth in the U17 girls’ single sculls.