For Ted Yee, cross-country skiing training this winter involved roller blades or roller skis on the footpaths of Ashburton. Phtot supplied.Cross-country skier Ted Yee is used to having some of the best training possible at his doorstep, literally. But winter 2018 had been different.

Ted, who hails from New England in America (where snow typically covers the ground for the bulk of winter), has spent this winter living in Ashburton where the nearest competition cross-country skiing venue is hours away in Wanaka.

So he’s had to improvise, using roller blades or roller skis and hitting the footpaths of Ashburton to keep up the kind of momentum which had seen him make the Massachusetts under-16 team back home.

It has done the trick.  In September Ted headed to Snow Farm in Wanaka for the national secondary schools’ cross-country skiing championships where he finished third in the classic event, fourth in the skating event and third in the team event where he joined up with a couple of skiers from Dunedin.

It was a good result considering there had been few opportunities to actually train on the snow in New Zealand, compared to back home. Most of his training has been done on roller blades or roller skis, with the track around the Ashburton Business Park one of his favourite training grounds locally because of its smooth and flat surface.

Ted, a 15-year-old year 11 student at Ashburton College, came to New Zealand in July with his family, mum Mary, dad Ed and sister Peggy. Mary Yee, a GP, landed a position as a physician at the Moore Street Medical Centre for a year so the family packed up their lives for an adventure on the other side of the world.

Three months in, they are loving it, although it has felt a little odd to look out the window and see flowers in bloom in the middle of winter. For them, winter generally means piles of snow everywhere and endless snow shovelling.

The family hails from a town of about 7000 people, called Dalton. The town’s claim to fame is that for more than 200 years it has been the only producer of US currency paper.

In the summer it is muggy and humid, but in the winter it is cold, with snow generally covering the ground from Christmas through to the end of February.

Snow and snow sports are a big part of their lives. Ed Yee used to be a coach for the American junior Olympic biathlon team, a job which saw him help set up a programme aimed at seeking out some of the country’s brightest young future stars. That, Ted said, was probably how he got the cross-country skiing bug.

He skied for his school ski team for the past three years and was also on the Lenox Memorial Middle and High School athletics team.

In the summer, Ted runs. He is pretty good too, the fastest on his team and sixth in the league back home, which is about the equivalent of sixth in Canterbury here.

With the ski season finished, the New Zealand secondary school athletics championships is the next big competition on his mind.

There he is eyeing up the longer distances – the 3000m and the 1500m.

“I’m better at running, but skiing is a lot more fun because it’s faster and it’s fun to just fly over the snow,” Ted said. “And it’s not as harsh as running on your legs, so you don’t get the injuries like tendonitis and things like that.”

When it comes to the future, Ted doesn’t know where his future lies. In America, competition is tough when it comes to high performance sport, and spots at the winter and summer Olympics are hard to come by. So he is just taking things as they came.

For now, that means enjoying the experience of a year abroad and looking forward to telling his mates back home about his experience attending nationals during his year in New Zealand.

Ed Yee said while the nearest cross-country ski area that was regularly open in the South Island is in Wanaka, that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible to achieve great things.

“We have people who have made the Olympic team that live in New York, who practise in Central Park,” Ed Yee said.

By  Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 3 November 2018

Matt Clough battles the elements in the Xterra. Photo supplied.Ashburton multisporter Matthew Clough has finished ninth in his age group at the 2018 Xterra World Championships in Maui, Hawaii.

The 18-year-old Ashburton College student lined up at the start of the race earlier this week in what has been described as some of the muddiest, dirtiest conditions in the event’s 23-year history.

Given what competitors faced, Clough said he was pleased with his result of ninth overall in the 15-19-year-old section.

“Just getting to the finish line was a massive achievement in itself,” he said.

He crossed the finish line in a time of 4.14.32 hours, after completing the swim leg in 24.01 minutes, the bike leg in 2.40.38 hours and the run leg in 1.09.53 hours.

“I had a decent swim, out of the water fourth, a tough bike fighting the mud the whole way, having to stop many times to clear the mud from my frame so that my wheels would actually spin,” Clough said.

The run leg was slippery, but Clough was pleased with how it went overall.

Clough described the race as super tough and said it was a long day at the office, but he was happy knowing he’d left it all out there.

The Xterra World Championships are like an off-road triathlon, with the road bike switched out for a mountain bike and the road run exchanged for a cross-country run.

Earlier this year Clough travelled to Denmark to compete at the ITU Multisport World Championships.

In Denmark Clough, 17 at the time, won silver in the under-19 aquathlon and silver in the 18-19 year age group in the cross triathlon.

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 2 November 2018

Veronica Wall in action on the water in 2017. Photo supplied.The Aoraki Secondary Schools Sports Awards are set to celebrate their 20th anniversary in style in Timaru on Friday night.

Some of the winners since Waitaki Girls’ High School netballer Tara Pate – who was from Ashburton – and Waimate High School’s cyclist Heath Blackgrove took out the inaugural awards back in 1999 have gone on to do some pretty amazing things on the world stage.

There were three world champions, seven Olympians and two Commonwealth Games champions among the past winners.

Shot putter Tom Walsh from Timaru Boys’ High School took out the boys’ award in 2009 and since then has won the world indoor and outdoor titles and is an Olympic bronze medallist.

Cyclist Marc Ryan (TBHS) won the Aoraki boys’ prize in 2000 and Dylan Kennett (Waitaki Boys’) followed him more than a decade later in 2011.

They however teamed up to be team pursuit world champions.

In between Shane Archbold (Mountainview High School) took the title in 2007 and 2008 and went on to become the Commonwealth Games scratch race champion.

Cyclist Lauren Ellis (Ashburton College) also won twice at the Aoraki Schools awards and progressed to win the silver at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in the team pursuit and was also a 3-time medallist at the world championships.

Mayfield rower Emma Dyke (Craighead) was part of the women’s eight at the Rio Olympics that finished fourth.

Inaugural winner Pate also had success in her chosen sport of netball representing New Zealand at the World Youth Cup in 2000 as a defender and then made the New Zealand under 21 team to the world championships under captain Adine Harper.

In 2001, Southern Sting coach Robyn Broughton rated the Otago Rebels’ Pate as one of the best players in netball’s national league.

Representatives from 16 different sports have won over the 19 years with athletics leading the way with eight, cycling seven and rowing five.

Ashburton College leads the award winners with 10 in total (six girls, four boys) from TBHS with seven and Craighead Diocesan School with five.

Five students have won the title more than once including 400m runner Samuel Wilson (Ashburton College), cyclist Lauren Ellis (Ashburton), tennis player Emily Fanning (Craighead), clay target shooter William Rooney (TBHS) and rower Veronica Wall (Ashburton).

Wall managed to smash all sorts of records at the Maadi Cup and along with fellow 2017 winner, rugby player Cullen Grace (TBHS), looks set for big things so it will be interesting to see where their undoubted talent takes them.

By Stu Piddington © The Ashburton Guardian - 31 October 2018