Over Easter weekend, two teams of King’s College students proudly represented the school for the very first time at the NZ College Games. This is a CrossFit competition open to teams of secondary school students from around New Zealand and was a fantastic opportunity for our students to experience CrossFit in a competitive environment.
In preparation for the event, the students trained throughout Term 1 at twice-weekly CrossFit sessions, coached by TIC Wally Rifle, learning the various movements and most importantly how to compete in teams. The competition was held at Eden Park on a very hot and sunny Saturday (8 April) and attracted around 200 student athletes from various high schools and gyms.
In keeping with CrossFit’s traditional fitness methods, the competition was deliberately structured to push our teams through a range of workouts that included a combination of bodyweight and olympic lifting exercises. This was the second event of the College Games, following a test pilot held in 2022 and the first event of its kind in the world. Pacific-led organisation Buttabean Motivation were a part of this year’s programme and the students enjoyed being motivated by Dave Letele (aka. Brown Buttabean) as the competition was opened.
Providing further motivation and entertainment was an exhibition event held during the lunchbreak featuring some of New Zealand’s elite CrossFit athletes. The students all worked incredibly hard on the day, pushing themselves to their limits and supporting each other within their teams. It was no mean feat with a total of four gruelling workouts over the course of the day. Made even tougher for our team of girls who were down to three members, instead of four, on the day.
As Coach Rifle stated “we couldn’t have been more proud of the way the students committed to representing the College at this event, they worked extremely hard, supported and encouraged each other, and tested themselves to their limits to achieve some great results. We’re looking forward to this event growing and more teams from King’s College CrossFit being a part of this in the future”.
Congratulations to our two teams, consisting of:
• Tipene Lee-Lemon (Team Captain, Year 11, Parnell)
• D’Angelo Tupou (Year 11, Parnell)
• Parekaahu Keepa (Year 10, Parnell)
• Andy Guy (Year 12, Parnell)
• Grace Miller-Coulter (Team Captain, Year 12, Taylor)
• Lutie Spencer (Year 11, Taylor)
• Helena St Clair-Brown (Year 12, Middlemore)
