20 Sep 2019

Friday 20 September 2019

Earlier this week King’s sent two teams of Skiers to compete at the North Island Secondary School Ski Championships which were held at Turoa, Ohakune.

King's College skiers at the North Island Secondary School Ski Championships which were held at Turoa, Ohakune


With competition for places in the teams fierce and a number of students currently in New Zealand Junior squads, hopes were high that King’s would place well in the team event and push for a podium finish. The results that the two teams (A and B) achieved were outstanding and give a very good insight in to just how many talented skiers we currently have at the College.

Due to unsafe weather conditions the first two days of competition were cancelled which left everything resting on the results of the Slalom races which were held on the Wednesday.

Each team of five has to contain at least one junior male skier and one female. The  rest of the team can be a combination of any age categories and genders. The skiers are seeded in their team depending on their racing ability. Whilst being fast is obviously important, there are also some tactics and strategy involved in regard to the composition of the team and the order in which they sky. 

Once all of the skiers in a category have completed the course and recorded their times, each competitor in the race is given a points score ranging from 20 down to 1. The fastest skiers get 20 points and the slowest get 1. The scores for the four fastest skiers from each team are combined to give the overall team total. The maximum score possible is 80 points.

The King’s skiers in both the A and the B team were outstanding! 

As it turned out the King’s A team scored a perfect 80 points to win the overall NISS title beating Diocesan School for Girl’s (77) by a clear 3 points. Such was their dominance that even if one of the skiers had fallen and we had used our 5th seeded skier, the team would still have taken the overall title. The B team did superbly well to come 3rd equal on 74 points, tied with the Saint Kentigern A Team.

To come 1st and  3rd overall out of 104 teams is a fantastic achievement.

Overall Team points - Top 10 Schools:

School

Points

Place

King's College - Team A

80

1

Diocesan School for Girls - Team A

77

2

King's College - Team B

74

3=

Saint Kentigern College - Team A

74

3=

Saint Cuthberts College - Team A

72

5

Saint Mary's College (Auckland) - Team A

71

6

Auckland Grammar School - Team B

70

7

Baradene College - Team A

68

8=

Diocesan School for Girls - Team B

68

8=

Lindisfarne College - Team A

68

8=

Individual Honours:

Whilst we took the Gold and Bronze medals for the team event, a number of skiers also achieved individual honours.

Congratulations to Jack Mitchell (2nd) and Jack Harman (3rd) in the Junior Boy’s category, and to Milly Tooman (3rd) in the Senior Girl’s category.

With seven of these ten skiers all returning next year, and with some more talented skiers ready to slot in to the team, the future for King’s skiing for the next few years looks very bright indeed.

Summary of results:

Junior Men’s individual results

In total King’s had five Junior Boys skiing. All of them finished in the Top 10 in a field of 142 competitors.

Name

School

Time

Points

2nd Jack Mitchell

King's College - Team A

23.79

20

3rd Jack Harman

King's College - Team A

23.79

20

5th Anton Simpson

King's College - Team B

24.62

19

7th Will Francis

King's College - Team B

25.68

18

9th George Wallace

King's College - Team B

25.8

18

Junior Women’s individual results

In the Junior Girls Charlie Francis skied well to record a 4th place overall in a field of 139 competitors:

Name

School

Time

Points

4th Charlie Francis

King's College - Team A

23.31

20

Senior Men’s individual results

In the Senior Boy’s Nicolai Foenander and Max Finnegan both had great races to finish inside the top 10 in a field of 78 competitors.

Name

School

Time

Points

5th Nicolai Foenander

King's College - Team A

31.38

18

7th Max Finnegan

King's College - Team B

31.93

17

Senior Women’s individual results

In the Senior Girl’s Milly Tooman and Bridget Speed both had great races to finish 3rd and 6th respectively in a field of 105 competitors.

Name

School

Time

Points

3rd Milly Tooman

King's College - Team A

31.36

20

6th Bridget Speed

King's College - Team B

32.27

19