Mollie Gibson and her New Zealand quad crew training on Lake Karapiro ahead of the World Rowing Junior Championships in the Czech Republic. Photo supplied.Ashburton’s Mollie Gibson is about to embark on the biggest adventure of her young rowing career to date.

Tomorrow she’ll board a plane with 19 other budding young Kiwi rowing stars, bound for the Czech Republic, where the World Rowing Junior Championships awaits them.

For 16-year-old Gibson, it’s a huge opportunity. It will be her first time competing on the world rowing stage, and although she can’t wait, she admits the nerves are starting to build.

Gibson will race in the girls’ quad.

She’s the boat’s stroke – the one who sets the pace – and after seven weeks in camp at Lake Karapiro in the Waikato preparing themselves for what lies ahead, the crew know each other well and have become good friends, Gibson said.

Just how they’ll fare against the world’s best though is hard to gauge at the moment.

All they’ve been able to do is prepare the best they can and hope they’ve done enough.

“It’s hard to tell because we have no idea what the other countries are going to be like,” Gibson said.

“But everyone’s goal is to win, I guess.”

A Year 12 student at Ashburton College, being in camp for seven weeks in the Waikato hasn’t meant Gibson has missed out on school work in what is a vital schooling year in determining a student’s future plans.

Six days a week, the young rowers have been getting up at 5.15am, to start training at 6am, and on school days returning at about 9am to get ready to head to school.

For the past seven weeks, Gibson’s school has been St Peter’s in Cambridge.

But there’s been no classes. Gibson and her fellow school-aged New Zealand reps have been setting up camp in the school’s library and completing work set out for them by their own teachers, before heading back to training again at 3pm.

It’s been hard, tiring work.

“A lot of people fall asleep at school,” Gibson said.

Even she did, just the once.

Being away from home and family for so long hasn’t been easy, with the rowers’ families allowed just one weekend visit, and the rowers allowed just one weekend at home.

The Ashburton College school ball – which would have been Gibson’s first ball – fell while the camp was on but even if she’d wanted to make that her weekend at home, the rowers were not allowed to attend their school balls.

“But that’s a small price to pay, I’d say,” Gibson said.

Being a rower takes dedication.

It means early starts and countless hours both on the water and in the gym.

But all that work has been paying off for Gibson.

Up until now, the biggest rowing regattas she’s has attended have been Maadi Cups – the New Zealand secondary school rowing championships.

At Maadi earlier this year she won gold in the under-18 double and quad, and the under-17 single, and bronze in the under-17 quad – performances that earned her a place in the 20-strong New Zealand team for the junior worlds.

“The world champs are a lot smaller than the New Zealand secondary schools’, there’s only about 600 athletes I think go, compared to like 2200 at Maadi,” Gibson said.

The worlds may be smaller, but Gibson knows it will be a lot harder on the water in the Czech Republic.

She’s more than ready though.

The seven weeks in camp have taught her a lot and she’s loved spending so much time on Lake Karapiro.

“You can row for ages, just in one direction, without having to turn around like at Lake Hood,” she said.

Gibson is one of two Mid Canterbury rowers heading to the Czech Republic for the worlds, with Veronica Wall the other one.

She’ll race in the single, while her dad – Ashburton rowing coach Justin Wall – is the coach for both the single and the quad.

Gibson said it has been great having a coach she knows so well coaching her in the New Zealand boat.

At just 16, Gibson is the second youngest member of the New Zealand team, and she has one more year where she’ll be eligible for the junior worlds.

But she’s not getting ahead of herself.

This year’s worlds are yet to come – they begin on August 8 – and Gibson plans on giving it her absolute all in the hope of becoming the latest in a long line of New Zealand rowers to medal on the world stage.

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 27 July 2018

Taylah Burrowes with the gold medal she won at last weekend’s karate nationals. Photo supplied.Ashburton 14-year-old Taylah Burrowes has claimed her first gold medal at the national karate championships.

The win in the 14/15 year old kumite division topped off a big few months for Burrowes, who also won gold at the New Zealand Open in March, and finished fourth at the Oceania championships, narrowly missing out on bronze.

While the win earlier this year at the New Zealand Open (which is open to people from other countries too) was Burrowes’ second win at that competition, last weekend’s win was her first New Zealand national title at the national championships.

She had to defeat three others on her way to winning gold.

“One of them was quite close, but the other two weren’t too bad,” Burrowes said.

She said she wasn’t sure how she’d fare going into the competition, having only arrived home from a holiday in Fiji a couple of days earlier. “I had been away the week before so I was a little bit nervous going into it,” Burrowes said.

Burrowes said her next karate competition would be in Auckland next month, with the next Commonwealth Karate Championships not on her radar.

Burrowes attended the Karate Commonwealth Games in India a couple of years ago, and the next Commonwealth competition is being held in South Africa later this year. They were initially scheduled to host the competition last year but it was put off due to security fears and as a result, many competitors – Burrowes included – are staying away.

Burrowes was one of six Ashburton karate exponents competing in Wellington last weekend, with Kyle Cabangun also in action in the boys’ 14/15 year old age group. He came second.

Burrowes was also fourth in the kata.

© The Ashburton Guardian - 21 July 2018

Ashley Kelland (left) and Stephen McLachlan were charged with umpiring the final at the national under-18 men’s association tournament last week. Photo supplied.When Wellington took on Canterbury in the final of hockey’s national under-18 association tournament last week, a former Ashburton man was sideline making the tough calls and ensuring the rules were adhered to.

After a strong showing with the whistle throughout the tournament at North Harbour, Ashley Kelland was picked as one of the two umpires to control the tournament’s feature game, which was won by Wellington, 1-0.

For Kelland, who attended Ashburton College but moved to Christchurch at the beginning of last year to study law, it was one of the biggest umpiring opportunities that had come his way so far and was hopeful it would be a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

He said it was hard to know what the future held, but in hockey there were options aplenty.

World Cups, Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games were options one day, but for now Kelland is just taking it one step at a time and with the under-18 tournament done he has turned his attention back to the final few weeks of the Christchurch club hockey season.

Kelland took up umpiring about six years ago. He used to play hockey too and was a member of the Ashburton College First XI when he was at school but gave away the playing side of the sport when he started at university because it would have been too much on top of studying and umpiring.

He umpires at least two or three times most weeks, officiating in division one, secondary school, junior men’s and the occasional premier grade game.

“I wasn’t a great player but sometimes I miss it, but then I think I wouldn’t stop umpiring to play again,” Kelland said.

Being an umpire or a referee in any sport isn’t always the easiest job. If you get a call wrong, you hear about it, and often the umpire becomes the scapegoat for players, coaches and supporters.

For Kelland though, that was just part of the job and the more experienced he got, the better equipped he was at dealing with that side of it.

“You can get some very passionate players, that would be a good way to describe it, especially in the high intensity games or the school games, they can be quite intense,” Kelland said.

Coaches and supporters could also get a bit excited and throw a few words in an umpire’s direction.

“I think you need to have a thick-ish skin. You have to ignore some stuff but besides that you don’t have to have a certain kind of personality to be a hockey umpire,” he said.

“You can be quite chilled and relaxed and go out there and have fun, or you can be strict and serious, you just can’t let what people say get to you. I think the more you get used to it, the more you are able to ignore it and the better you manage it.”

The next big test for Kelland will come in Tauranga in a couple of months’ time. He’s been asked back to umpire at his second Rankin Cup, the top secondary school tournament in New Zealand.

Last year, at his first Rankin Cup, Kelland said he didn’t fare so well, but an umpire development official who watched him at the under-18 tournament last week told him he was impressed with how far he’d come.

So Kelland is hopeful when the Rankin Cup hits itsfinal stages this year, he’ll be in the mix for some of the big games.

Last week’s association under-18 tournament was effectively the second-tier national tournament, and ahead of that was the regional tournament which was held in Dunedin and featured the country’s eight main regions.

Next year, Kelland hopes he’ll be making the step up to that tournament, and from there he has his sights set on possible roles at under-21s and even the National Hockey League (NHL).

“But it’s quite competitive, so I don’t know how far I’ll go. If I get all the way to the NHL, then I guess I get to the NHL,” he said.

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 19 July 2018