Yachtsman keen for second crack at Olympic
Campbell Burnes
All year, ahead of the annual ASB YSPOTY awards function this Saturday, we have profiled past winners as we count down to the 25th annual event which honours the top young college sportspeople in the region.
The awards will be open for general admission with $10 tickets available at the door. Come and see tomorrow’s sporting stars. The event runs from 4pm-6.30pm at the Logan Campbell Centre in Greenlane, with doors opening at 3.30pm. Paul Snow-Hansen (Takapuna Grammar) 2007
Yachtie Snow-Hansen was, in 2007, the second of four ASB supreme winners out of Takapuna Grammar.
The 25-year-old
had
already gained notice in 2004 with silver in the Optimist world championships and was again to the fore in 2007, in partnership with schoolmate Blair Tuke, the current 49er world champion with Peter Burling.
“2007 was a really great year,” Snow-Hansen said. “The youth world champs was just our second regatta in the 29er class. To walk away with a silver medal was pretty cool.
‘‘I was also lucky to have gone through Takapuna Grammar with a bunch of sailors, including my older brother Mike, the Ellinghams and other local kids from the Wakatere Boating Club.
“Sailing with Blair at the time, we had an intense national trials up against the Saunders brothers. This gave us just three months to learn a new boat for the youth worlds.”
A national 470 class champion in 2013, Snow-Hansen has been a regular on the international scene, but representing New Zealand at the 2012 London Olympics remains the highlight.
“Jason Saunders and I placed fifth in the 470 class. It was really exciting to be in with a chance to medal at the pinnacle of our sport.”
He has the goal of winning a medal in the 470 class in Rio next year Dan Willcox, who he teamed up with after London.
“As members of the NZL Sailing Team, we train with gold medallists Polly Powrie and Jo Aleh. We are here in New Zealand over summer, preparing for our world champs in Argentina early next year.
‘‘It’s great to be back sailing on the Hauraki Gulf.” Danica Aitken (Epsom Girls’ Grammar) 1999
Top aerobics exponent Aitken won the 1999 girls’ supreme award, following Nicola Kaiwai (1994) and Sarah Macky (1997) as top performers out of Epsom Girls’ Grammar.
“Epsom was a fantastic school that had a great culture that promoted elite performance in sport,” said Aitken, now Danica Aitken Swift and working for Microsoft in Seattle in the US. “I can’t imagine having gone anywhere else.”
The 33-year-old sounds even busier than she was in 1999, with a baby due next week and yet still doing plenty and all to a high level.
“My [triplet] sisters, Joanna, Kelly and I did do very well in aerobics that year, winning both the senior high school and open New Zealand