Maddie Wesche wins Silver
Congratulations to Lynfield College past pupil Maddie Wesche on achieving a personal best and winning Silver at the Paris Olympics 2024. We are so PROUD of you Maddie.
Maddison-Lee Wesche claimed the silver medal in a thrilling women’s shot put final at the Paris 2024 Olympics this morning.
Yemisi Ogunleye of Germany emerged as the ultimate champion, but not before a nail-biting battle with Wesche for the top spot.
For most of the final, Wesche held the lead. However, Ogunleye had a remarkable final-round throw, stealing the lead from the Kiwi athlete.
The crowd was electrified as Ogunleye hyped them up before unleashing a 20.00m throw. With one final opportunity to reclaim the lead and snatch the gold medal, Wesche gave it her all. Unfortunately, her last effort fell short at 19.68m.
Nonetheless, Wesche’s earlier throw of 19.86m, which also happened to be her personal best, secured her the silver medal.
Reflecting on her emotions after the event, Wesche told the Herald, “I am on cloud nine right now. I would have liked the gold, everyone wants a gold medal but a silver medallist is pretty good.”
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When asked about her mindset during the competition, she shared, “I was just trying to keep with my same mentality, keep calm, keep happy, trust the pattern that I’ve been working on and training and just let the work do for itself.”
Wesche also highlighted the competitive nature of women’s shot put and despite the intense competition, she remains grounded.
“I don’t put any expectations or pressure on myself. You know, these may be the Olympics but it’s still a competition at the end of the day. So I just keep my same mentality. Keep it happy. Keep laughing.
“Women’s shot put is so competitive at the moment and there are so many women on the castle breaking 21 metres and 22 metres. So to be a part of that group of women that not only are competitive but are lovely people I like being around, I think it’s a good history to be a part of.”
A Kiwi woman has now stood on the podium in the shot put event at the last five Olympic Games. Valerie Adams claimed gold in Beijing and London, silver in Rio, and bronze in Tokyo. Wesche’s silver medal at Paris 2024 continues this streak.
After the event, Wesche ran to see her family.
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Copy Credit: The New Zealand Herald | Photo credit: Getty Images
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‘Epetoma o te reo Māori Kūki 'Airani
Celebrate Cook Islands Māori Language Week
Sunday 4 to Saturday 10 August
The 2024 theme for Cook Islands Māori Language Week is ‘Ātui’ia au ki te vaka o tōku matakeinanga - connect me to the canoe of my tribe’
This theme derives from the overarching Language Week Series theme for 2024, 'Sustainability'. Resources for Cook Islands Māori Language Week can be found at this link on the Ministry for Pacific People website: Cook Islands Language Week 2024
NZSS Squash Championship Success
On Thursday last week our Sports Coordinator Kieren Chhiba flew down to Wellington with our Premier Boys Squash team to compete in the New Zealand Secondary School Squash Championships.
Held at the Hutt City Squash Club from 2nd to 4th August, Secondary Schools can enter teams of five in either/both, the boys (Ross Norman Trophy), and girls (Susan Devoy Trophy) competitions, with ties played in pool and/or knockout format to decide the winners. Since 2010 a co-ed trophy has also been contested.
Going into the competition the boys were seeded 10th out of 32 however we had goals of achieving much higher. Through the first day of competition the team managed to beat Avondale 5 - 0 and Marlborough College (7th seeded team) 3 - 2 in a very very close match which guaranteed a spot in the top 8!
We then went on to face Hamilton Boys and Whangarei the following day but were unfortunate to come away with two losses despite the games being fairly close.
This set the boys up for the 7th and 8th placed game on Sunday morning against Cullinane College (4th seeded team). This turned out to be another close match in which the boys were able to grind out a 3 - 2 win!
This meant they finished 7th in the whole of New Zealand!
An incredible achievement for this team and for Lynfield College.
If you do see any of the following students around school, please do congratulate them on their performances:
Calum Bint, Ashwin Gupte, Oskar Ludvig, Aditya Parab, Rohan Sharma
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