The Westlake Girls Ski Team proved that there is depth and talent in the pool of seasoned and upcoming skiers this year at the Auckland Secondary Schools Ski Champs at Snowplanet. The team competed strongly in an incredibly competitive event to finish 5th best ski school in Auckland.
Young Year 9 student, Lena Turnbull (pictured above), shone by winning the school’s only medal when she finished 3rd overall in Slopestyle. Fellow Year 9 student, Phoebe Dobson placed 8th and Harriet Gowing finished 13th.
A field of 97 racers competed in showcase Giant Slalom Race and Westlake performed well to have 3 racers finish in the top 20 overall. Phoebe Dodson and Lena Turnbull tied for 6th place in the junior girls and both came 18th place overall while Harriet Gowing was 20th overall, and 13th in senior girls. Claudia Pilkington, just 0.2 seconds behind Harriet, placed 24th overall with Tayla Coplestone 37th and Eva Todd 53rd overall. In their first ever ski race, Mackenzie South and Luka Kirk placed 65th and 68th respectively.
Each race added to the overall points for the team and it meant that as a school, Westlake Girls placed 5th overall, behind Kristin, St Cuthbert, and Diocesan and just one point behind St Mary’s College. Westlake Girls was the number one public school at the competition.
The Westlake Snowsports Team is now heading to Wanaka for the July holidays to train with Olympian Juliane Bray and Sam Lynch on Cardrona.