Athletics

A huge congratulations to Mulan!

Earlier, I wrote about Mulan's Auckland athletics relay successes.

The latest news is that Mulan was selected for the Auckland athletics team to compete in the New Zealand Interprovincial competition.  This team competition is for Grade 12 and 13 boys and girls, and is held over Easter weekend.

Each New Zealand province can enter at most 11 children in each grade/sex, so obviously it's a big deal to be one of the 11 12-year-old girls selected from across all of Auckland.

This was a last-minute thing for us.  Kids who were interested in joining the team were meeting for training sessions on Sunday mornings throughout the summer season.  We hadn't thought much about it, and have been doing gymnastics at that time each week instead.

But about a month ago a few people from our club suggested Mulan go along to the training sessions and have a go.  We first tried it three weeks ago, and Mulan fitted in well with the girls.  We filled out the forms, including listing Mulan's PBs (personal bests), and left it for the managers to decide on the team.

Meanwhile, Mulan was selected by Takapuna Athletic Club to join the Top 10 competition, and they competed last Saturday.  This is an Auckland-wide interclub team competition.  Each club enters at most two boys and two girls in each grade, with each pair then competing as a team against the other pairs from other clubs.

The twist is that each member of the pair has to compete in four quite different events -- this is a competition for all-rounders, not specialists.  So, Mulan competed in the 200m, 1500m, long jump and discus.  Her Takapuna club partner competed in 100m, 800m, high jump and shot put.

Mulan did brilliantly well on the day, getting three new PBs:

• long jump: 3.96m -- 3rd
• discus: 21.09m (PB) -- 3rd
• 1500m: 6:12.37 (PB) -- 4th
• 200m: 31.65s (PB) -- 6th

Mulan's partner, Kate, also had great performances.  Together, they got silver for the Grade 12 girls!

Overall, Takapuna club got 4th place.

The results are here.

On Sunday at training we got the awesome news that both Mulan and Kate were chosen for the Auckland Interprovincial team.  They have asked Mulan to compete in long jump, discus, shot put and 400m.

And if that isn't good enough, last night Takapuna club has its final clubnight of the season, which also doubled as club champs.  Mulan finished her club competition with two more PBs:

• long jump: 4.30m
• discus: 24.58m

Unfortunately, this may be Mulan's final athletics competition of the season.  There is a good chance that the Interprovincial competition will be cancelled this year, to rightly keep people safe from covid-19.  The latest news is that the Interprovincials is postponed until October.

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We can't forget Miya -- she's also had an awesome athletics season!

At last night's clubnight, Miya finished off the season with two new PBs:

• long jump: 3.64m
• shot put: 8.20m

Mulan and Miya have a healthy, friendly rivalry at athletics.  After each athletics competition we record the girls results on a spreadsheet and analyse the results (doubles as a great statistics lesson!).  Miya was in Grade 9 this season, and we can look back at Mulan's Grade 9 results from three years ago.

Now at the end of the athletics season, we can officially say that Miya beat Mulan's Grade 9 PBs in 4 out of 8 events -- 200m, high jump, shot put and long jump.

Overall, it looks like both girls are pretty even in their athletics performances -- well done to both of them!