Students and teams connect at rafting welcome

For immediate release – 14 November 2013

Students from Kawerau’s Tarawera High School, South School, and Pūtauaki School joined together on Wednesday to give a warm welcome to teams from across the world that have arrived in the Eastern Bay in the lead up to the 2013 Rafting World Rafting Champs.

Tarawera High School hosted the teams on their grounds and welcomed them with a karakia and speeches. The students also performed a waiata for the visitors which was well received with loud cheers and clapping from the audience.

Teams were then introduced to some of the students from the Adopt-a-Nation programme as they made the short walk down to the key spectator site on the Tarawera river course.

The walk took the teams through the school where the students performed a haka to welcome them and classes waved flags and signs about the countries they had been studying.

Kawerau Mayor, Malcolm Campbell, was part of the official welcome and was impressed by the level of enthusiasm from rafting teams and students alike.

“The morning was a fantastic start to the competition and festivities. There was excellent turn-out and a real buzz down by the river. I was blown away by the interaction between students and teams and also between all the different countries. Some of the feedback I have had from talking to competitors and officials is that they were really impressed with the opportunity this gave them to enjoy the social side of the event before the training and hard work gets underway from now,” he said.

Teams have also been impressed with the quality of the course and facilities.

“This is a world class course and the Tarawera River is of a consistently high quality for competing. But more than that, the unique location with a close proximity to the town and amenities means that the course is really accessible both for competitors and for spectators alike. We’ve been getting great feedback so far about the choice of location for this World event,” Mr Campbell said.

The official training period is now underway and events are scheduled to start with the World Youth Champs on Friday and Saturday. Events and training continue throughout the week culminating in the Open competitions on Saturday 23 November and the eventfinda Global Water House festival alongside the races.

Ends

© Scoop Media