St Oran’s College’s Rebecca Bailey capped off a memorable week on Tuesday night by being named her school’s Sports Allrounder of the Year and being chosen as her school’s Sports Captain for 2025.

Last Friday, on day one of the New Zealand Secondary School Track and Field and Road Race Championships in Timaru, Rebecca was crowned Senior Girls Javelin champion.

She won the title, with a best throw of 48.81m – a personal best by four metres and just 14 centimetres short of the NZSS Championships Senior Girls record set in 2017.

An outstanding achievement, considering she only took up the sport properly 12 months ago. Her maiden competition was in February this year.

Before last week she was already the reigning College Sport Wellington Regional and North Island Senior Girls champions and Athletics Wellington U18 champion (all from March and April), but this win is her biggest yet, and one she will have the chance of defending in her last year of school in 2025.

Rebecca told College Sport Wellington how last Friday’s win panned out.

“I qualified in sixth off eight [of 18 starters] for the final after the first three rounds and started those throws off a seven-stride run-up to get my rhythm and control right, so to get into the final was my first goal achieved.

“I then moved to my full run-up, and I threw far enough with my fourth throw to get into third place. Then when I threw my fifth throw, I put too much pressure on myself and completely pulled the javelin so fouled it.

“Then in my sixth and last throw I visualised what I was going to do, and I had these [technical] cues in my head as I was doing it and I pulled it off.”

As well as easily being her personal best competition throw, it was over three metres further than the best by defending champion and South Island winner, Alex Duff of Dunedin’s Columba College.

Juliet McKinlay from Whanganui Collegiate was third, while Wellington East Girls’ College’s Chelsey Moananu also made the final and finished seventh.

Rebecca was naturally ecstatic to have pulled off her emphatic winning throw. “I was shaking after it, I was expecting to throw 45m or maybe 46m as a PB but not what I did.”

She had a short anxious wait for the five other throwers to come but none could better her mark and she could start celebrating.

Conditions in Timaru last Friday were bright and sunny but the wind was tricky.

“There was a bit of a crosswind. All the throws were hitting the wind and either going through it or being hit by it and dumping down.”

By way of something mirroring the required skillset, Rebecca comes from a softball background, as an outfielder with a strong arm.

She subsequently connected with her coach, Andrew Harrison, via a family friend. “He said to me I think you have something here, and he was obviously right.”

To cap off a memorable week, Rebecca has also been selected in the New Zealand Schools athletics team, which means she will likely be competing in the upcoming annual ‘Classics’ series and gearing up for the New Zealand Nationals in Dunedin later in the summer.

As well as javelin and softball, Rebecca also has a recent sporting background in cross country, basketball, dragon boating, netball, volleyball and touch (along with umpiring/refereeing netball, touch and volleyball).

Representing her school in Timaru last Friday as an athletics team of one, Rebecca then left for Rotorua to link up with her St Oran’s teammates at the NZSS Touch Championships.

“I missed the first day but joined them for the Saturday games. We were in a hard pool so qualified for the bottom 16 for day two. But we made that final and lost to Sacred Heart College, New Plymouth. But a good result to build on next year.”

St Oran’s were the only standalone Wellington girls school at this tournament, along with St Pat’s Silverstream, HIBS, Hutt Valley High School and Naenae College, who variously fielded boys and mixed teams.

Returning home, she was straight into training on Monday morning with her dragon boating teammates, as she is the captain of the St Oran’s team for 2025.

St Oran’s are both the defending Wellington champions and the National champions – making Rebecca a double national champion in athletics and dragon boating.

Keeping it in the family, Rebecca’s older brother Jonathan is a former Wellington age grade rugby player and in 2024 played lock and blindside flanker for the Petone rugby club’s Premier team.

Her Senior Girls Javelin win is the first win by a Wellington athlete since the Robinson brothers, Cam and Tim, won the Senior Boys and Junior Boys titles at the 2017 NZSS Championships in Hastings. Tim is now a Wellington Firebird and Black Caps Twenty20 and ODI cricketer.

Article added: Thursday 12 December 2024