Weet-Bix Kids TRYathlon a sellout
The best part about crossing the finishing line at the Weet-Bix Kids TRYathlon? Dousing yourself in a cup of cold water.
“We got like ten cups and dumped them on our heads,” said 10-year-old Kobe Hemingway. We got way too hot,” 11-year-old Harley Carlisle agreed.
The pair were among the sold out crowd of 2170 kids between ages 6-15 that swam, biked and ran at the Christchurch event at Burnside’s Jellie Park yesterday.
Celebratory slushies and popcorn were the post match treat of choice for the Gardiner family’s three young athletes that braved the course for the first time. It was a unanimous decision, that the 4km bike ride (or 8km for older children) was “awesome” and the 1.5km run was a challenge.
“The run was the hardest because it’s at the end and you’ve used all your energy,” said 7-year-old Maeve Gardiner. Her 10-year-old cousin Fleur Gardiner believed she gave out “more than 100 high-fives” to other competitors along the course.
The hardest part of the day for some was choosing whether to have baked beans or spaghetti in their post-TRYathlon toasted sandwich. The Wattie's toastie station had the longest line of all the stalls and went through at least 36kgs within its first hour. “Early on the favourite was baked beans, and later on spaghetti just took off,” said Wattie's team leader Nivea Tupou.
Having completed five Weet-Bix TRYathlons herself as a kid, New Zealand rugby player Alana Bremner was positioned at the finish line handing medals out alongside fellow Blackfern Rosie Kelly and All Black Fletcher Newell.
Every child received a champions medal at the end of the course.
Bremner said it was “certainly a full circle moment to be on the other end” of the course encouraging the youngsters. “I just remember the feeling of turning up on the day and being really nervous,” she said about her own TRYathlons at Christchurch’s old QEII stadium. “It's the same feeling you get today when you're competing at a higher level so it's a really good introduction into doing something out of your comfort zone ... you can see it on their faces when they run that they’re really proud of themselves.”
Jellie Park was a “village” of activity, humming with more than 5000 people between athletes and supporters, said Sanitarium general manager Michael Barton. Young and old were making the most of a free Weetbix breakfast and it was “fantastic to see the community coming together” in his home town, he said.
It wasn’t a record year of athlete numbers because organisers have slightly reduced the event’s capacity because of “crowd reasons” Barton said, but the sellout showed there was “great demand in Christchurch for the kids to get amongst it”.
The long-running event that travels the country has now seen over 475,000 children take part since it began in 1992. There are 11 TRYathlon events across ten centres taking place this season until the end of March 2024. The next event is in Dunedin on Sunday.