The South Island Championships are finished for another year.
Unfortunately, like last year, the weather was not entirely cooperative. The wind rose on Saturday putting an early halt to racing; leading to some repechages being abandoned. Crews were progressed to finals based on heats results instead. An expectation Sunday would simialry be affected led to the U18 Fours being brought forward to the start of the day and the U18 Eights replacing them in the middle of the day. In the end though the forcast failed in rowing's favour and all finals were able to be completed.
Wakatipu High School retained the Points Bell for Champion School of the regatta. Timaru Boys High School improved one place on last year's results to come second. St Margarets College rounded out the top three.
The standard of competition was high and the 12 pennant events (those with unrestricted entry i.e. U18, excl novice) were shared between 9 different schools. Nobody managed a clean sweep of a gender's discpline but CASH, STAN and TIMB each managed to win 2 events. The other events were spread between ASHB, CBHS, CGHS, JMCG, RRGS, and STMG.
Christchurch Girls High School won the Girls Under-18 Eights; breaking the RRGS streak. And this year St Andrew College won the Boys Under-18 Eights.
Next up is a chance for schools to compete against their North Island counterparts when they come down to Lake Ruataniwha for the 2024 Aon Maadi Regatta.
Live results were available during the regatta. Results can be found on the rowIT website: rowit.nz/siss2024/results
Confused by the colors or codes? There's a list of school codes and colours, as well a page with indicative images of school colours.
There were no Relegations, Exclusions, or Disqualifications.
TIMB were found to have substituted a student into more crews than allowed under the limits. The Chief Umpire's discretion was exercised to allow the crew to continue to race. However, that meant it was ineligible for any trophy, medals, points, etc when it placed first in the A Final. Medals and points were accordingly reallocated to the other crews in the event.
At close of entries there are 1027 students from 44 schools entered in 2847 seats in 778 crews.
Entry fees (exclusive of GST) for the regatta were set by members at the 2023 AGM: 1X $20, 2X/2- $22, 4X+/4+ $32, 8X+/8+ $44, amenity $26 per student.
Maximum of 3 events per rower, a 4th event is allowed provided at least one event is for eights/octuples.
Maximum of 2 crews per school in each event for singles, doubles, and pairs events. That rises to 3 crews in quads and fours events. There is no limit in eights and octuples events.
School age rowers should only be racing 2 events at a Championships regatta. A few rowers could be considered for 3 events; none should be doing more.
Schools are limited to 3 "new" students in an eight and 1 "new" student in other boats ("new" students are those who've swapped schools or come from overseas and looks back over the past 2 years). There is now also a limit of 2 students with an NZSSSC-issued PCRE per crew (1 in singles!).
While South Island schools are competing on Lake Ruataniwha for recognition as the best the South Island has to offer their North Island counter-parts will do the same thing up at the 2024 Aon North Island Champs regattas on Lake Karāpiro. Keep a watch on both regattas for indicators of who may claim the top spot at Maadi!
There were 1135 students from 44 schools entered in 3166 seats in 882 crews. 197 races were held to complete the regatta and find the winners of all 52 events.
This New Zealand Secondary Schools Rowing Association regatta is sanctioned by School Sport New Zealand.
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