In a major announcement today, Triathlon New Zealand and the Christchurch City Council confirmed that the fast growing Contact National Schools Triathlon Championships will be held in Canterbury next March, at the new Pegasus Township.
With over 800 participants at the recent 2010 event held at Lake Karapiro, Triathlon New Zealand has not made the decision lightly to move one of its biggest and flagship events from a very successful venue but appreciated the need to bring the sport to the South Island schools that have either missed out or invested to attend the event at Karapiro.
Triathlon New Zealand Event Manager Haidee Stratford said the bidding process was an eye opener for the national body.
"The quality of the bid documents was amazing and to be honest we could have comfortably gone to any one of half a dozen venues, each of which would have done a wonderful job with this event.
"But Christchurch had the edge in a number of areas and clearly signaled the value they as a city will place on hosting this prestigious event. The infrastructure and support will be first class and the venue at Pegasus promises to be perfect from the calm swim to the largely flat bike and run on good quality roads."
For their part, the Christchurch City Council is delighted that Tri NZ has recognized their hard work in securing the event.
"We are delighted to get this chance to host an event that has been going on for 25 years and which involves 120 schools nationwide, says John Filsell, Unit Manager, Recreation & Sports with the Christchurch City Council.
"The event is a great proving ground for up and coming triathletes and contributes massively to the nation's incredible sporting legacy," says Mr Fisell.
"Christchurch has an excellent track record of regularly hosting highly successful events, and we can promise a top-quality national event and a fun "kiwi" experience for our junior triathlete teams, key stakeholders and partners, media and fans in 2011.
"The strength of Christchurch's sport heritage is because of the passion with which the city embraces the sports events held here, as well as our organisational skills and the 'can do' approach we take to everything."
The date for the event is set for March 31st 2011 and will once again occur on the Thursday in summer sports week, allowing schools plenty of time to plan for the trip, be it travel, accommodation or both that might be required.
Triathlon New Zealand Commercial Manager Carl Jackson sees a bright future for the event and believes Christchurch has the potential to match Karapiro in providing another world class venue for the fast growing event.
"The growth in this Contact National Schools Championships has been phenomenal since we took over the running of the event three years ago. Clearly the Maadi Cup (rowing) is an iconic schools event and one of the biggest in the world, we see no reason as to why we can't rival that in the years to come, the challenge is there now for the South Island in particular to support this initiative and turn up in even greater numbers than we had at Karapiro.
"That said we are hoping obviously that the North Island schools will commit to Christchurch and ensure a genuine national championship event and atmosphere, this gives schools the chance to plan and budget long term to attend next March within the official schools summer sports week."
Triathlon New Zealand has expressed complete confidence in the ability of Christchurch to put on a world class event with partner organizations and individuals of the highest quality and reputation, including the Canterbury Triathlon Club and experienced triathlon Race Director Ted Pearce.
