2018 Wellington Primary and Intermediate Schools Regional Cross-Country Harcourt Park Thu 5 Jul

Results (to come)

This event was held at Harcourt Park in Upper Hutt on the banks of the Hutt River. A scenic place and perfect for spectators.

It was supposed to be held on Tuesday the 3rd of July but was postponed until Thursday because of the weather. And just as well because I doubt that you could have gotten better conditions. 

About 900 plus kids participated in the racing which was designed to find out who would make up the Wellington region team to compete at the inter-regional competition in Nelson. 

For these kids it is a big deal simply because of the process it has taken to get to the start line. 

This is how I understand it all works, but since I could not find anything background info to explain it all I have used a bit of guesswork. If I am wrong them somebody will let me know.

Within a region there are schools and zones and groups of zones.

Stage 1:   Individual schools have races to pick a team to compete against other schools in their zone.

Stage 2:  At the zone meetings the best from each school fight out to see who represent their zone at the inter-zone

Stage 3:  At the inter-zone zone meetings, the best performers in each age grade go through to a regional competition.

Stage 4: At the regional competition a team is chosen to represent the whole region at the inter-regional.

Stage 5: The inter-regional 

What I have been told though is that for this particular school term cross-country is the main sporting focus within the primary/intermediate school community. 

A lot of these kids may be playing other sports but as we all know running is a base activity and more than handy when it comes to contributing to overall fitness.  

And of course there has been a push in recent years to get children participating more in physical activity and running is a very easy and simple way to achieve that.

Typically with this type of event you will always get some outstanding performers for their age and the results (when they are published) show who they are. 

It is this group of kids who would also have lined up this year for the Athletics Wellington Kids XC series which was so ably managed and coordinated by Athletics Development Manager Jo Murray. 

With her departure from the role late last year and setbacks in getting a replacement this series has been cancelled for 2018 and will launch again in 2019.  

It is a pity that momentum has been lost but I guess that cannot be helped. 

It would be useful though if Athletics Wellington updated its website because it still says the series will be held later in the winter when it appears that is no longer the case. 

There is also a lot of other info that needs to be changed because it is either out of date or no longer valid.