NZ Women’s Wood Chopping
Team 2008 Managers Report
Captain: Sheree Taylor
Vice Captain: Wendy Rakete-Stones
Karmyn Wynyard Darcell Apelu
Deanne
Rakete Chloe Bell
Alyson Clarke
Reserve: Kristy Moffett
Goal for 2008: To defend last years win
and beat Australia, America and Canada in the three race series
The
trials were held early December 2007 and went very well bringing out some
surprises. The outcome
being a very strong and versatile team for 2008.
As
the Sydney Easter show came around some three weeks
earlier this year, the ladies got straight into training. We attended the Rotorua
show and a week or so before leaving for Sydney
our last training run was at the Kumeu Show. I would like to thank both of those clubs for
providing the team with the events allowing them to prepare for relay racing
against strong teams.
Some
of our team members struggled with the politics within the NZ Wood
chopping Association and problems stemming from the men’s team, so much so,
that Wendy Rakete-Stones felt she couldn’t represent
the Association in Sydney. The team respected her wishes. As Wendy
was travelling to Sydney
she had agreed to step in should the team require this in Sydney.
The
first relay the NZ team won but were disqualified due to a wedger
touching the saw. The Canadian team were
disqualified also because another member of the team pulled the axe out of the
log. Australia took the first relay.
The
second relay was won by the NZ team and Australia came a very close
second. The NZ ladies knew they needed
to pull one out of the bag for the third race.
The
morning of the third race Darcell went off to the
emergency doctors with tonsillitis. This
left our team short and Wendy agreed
to step back into the team. The
officials re-drew the underhand logs for the relay without any notification and
NZ didn’t receive their logs until 5 minutes before the race was ready to
run. The final logs were being set up
while the National Anthems were being sung which was very unsettling for the
underhand cutters.
The
NZ team performed very very well but were just beaten
off by the Australian team. Australia 1st, NZ
2nd, America 3rd and Canada 4th. Of course the NZ ladies were very
disappointed but should be very proud of there performance in Sydney. Individually they took away all the Women’s titles with Deanne
Rakete winning the Women’s
Underhand, Sheree
Taylor and Alyson
Clarke won the Women’s Double hand Saw and Karmyn
Wynyard winning the Women’s Single
Saw and Women’s Points Trophy.
I
would like to thank Alistair Taylor, Jason
Wynyard and Pouri
Rakete-Stones for all their support toward the team
and me as manager. It is a wonderful
feeling when all the other kiwi competitors in Sydney
rally around the team and I know this support certainly helps when you are
racing in front of an Australian crowd.
Once
again the NZ Women’s Team gave 100% and I would like to thank them for there
efforts and professionalism whilst representing NZ.
Cheers
Mandy
Tepania
