Pooling Talent in the Tauranga family

Tu Tangata, Issue 34, 1 February 1987, Page 19

Pooling Talent in the Tauranga family

by Michael Romanos

TAURANGA-IKA is loosely translated by some as “drying out the fish”. But even though they swim like fish , there’s nothing dry about the Tauranga-Ika family of Hamilton.

Though they have long since dropped the “Ika” from their name it hasn’t stopped this six-strong family, in particular 16 year old Marama and 15 year old Whakaronga from reaching the top bracket in pool swimming competition in New Zealand with international Games competition only a touch away. The talent that is Marama, Whakaronga (Rongo for short), and 12 year old Arthur Tai with one foreseeing five year old David Piripi soon launching his career, filters through from their father, Whanawhana Totorewa Tairawhiti or Rana for short. The Parihaka (Taranaki)-born Rana came to Hamilton to serve out his apprenticeship as a motor mechanic. He was a competitive swimmer at the Opunake High School, holding school swimming records in all the strokes. Rana said it seems certain the interest he had in swimming encouraged his children with their natural ability taking over where initial encouragement has left off. Marama is in her seventh form year (1987) at Hamilton Girls High School. She was the trailblazer at national

level, being the oldest. Marama started swimming competitively at seven and over the last nine years she has won national age-grade titles in the medley and backstroke. “Hopefully I haven’t reached anywhere near my potential,” Marama confided to me. “Last year was tough for me academically, so I devoted more time to schoolwork. Eventually I want to go to University and study physiology.” Marama has accumulated 15 medals from age-grade national championship. Her best performance was when she was 13 when she won two national gold medals and swam the 100 metres freestyle in lm 0.235. Marama said both she and her coach Dick Treloar aren’t sure what stroke she is going to specialise with in the future, but she would love to be in the New Zealand team for the 1990 Commonwealth Games at Auckland. “That’s when I should be at my best if I follow the accepted pattern. I peaked at 13 and I should therefore peak again five years on.” Rongo is a 1987 fifth former at Ham-

ilton Girls High. She travelled to Tasmania last October with a New Zealand development squad for eight days of training and competition. She said that trip was the biggest achievement she has had so far.

“I represented New Zealand at the Australian Open Champs and I was pretty proud about it,” said Rongo.

“I was quite pleased with myself. It was a whole different experience for me. The races were held one after the other and I was a little overawed in its presentation. I was the only female butterfly swimmer among the 15 Kiwis and it made me nervous being out there on my own.”

Despite this, Rongo completed her best 50 metre butterfly, clocking 30 seconds flat. Coach Treloar is seriously looking to Rongo to compete at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

Currently she is the 100 m and 200 m national under 15 butterfly champion. She has collected 12 national championship medals to date. The tallest in the family at sft Bin which her father considers is an advantage in that she has a longer stroke and greater length of drive.

With personal best performances of 1m6.3s for the 100 m butterfly and 2m 24.5 s for 200 m fly, Rongo said the butterfly is not hard to perfect technically. “It’s more demanding physically than the other strokes - but I like it. It’s got a lot of rhythm to it.”

Rana said his children have all got good swimming technique. “They’ve picked it up from a variety of coaches,” he said. “But they have got a natural aptitude for sport. I think they could apply themselves to any sport and excell. But I’m happy they decided to concentrate on swimming.”

Mrs Tauranga (Margaret) stepped into the conversation saying that any sport is great.

“It teaches people discipline,” she said. “It keeps them occupied and away from trouble. I also think parents need to get behind their children more and support them in their sport and in other activities. I’m sure a lot of our children’s success has been due to our support.”

Twice daily, Rana accompanies his swimming children to the Centennial Pool for training and that means getting up at 4.30 am five days a week. Arthur started competitive swimming at five which was only a year after he had learnt to swim. Perhaps his early

start to competition has blunted his current enthusiasm for swimming. Arthur has other interests and does very well at them all.

Rana said it was natural for Arthur to jump in the pool with his sisters and at age eight and nine, Arthur won several Waikato provincial age-grade titles in freestyle and breaststroke. Since then size has been a major factor in Arthur not firing as well as he might have expected. At under five foot in height he has a handicap in size. But it is hoped that he will “spring up” before too long and be able to develop his full potential.

Arthur says he likes competition swimming but he has got other interests in sport - like club soccer, school rugby and Kung Fu. He has a brown belt in kung fu and in 1985 won the New Zealand grand national title for

Kata 4 (a senior red belt-brown tip class).

Arthur thinks swimming is a good sport for keeping fit and his father said swimming has the great advantage of being a sport which promotes few injuries.

Arthur loves Maori culture and has an ambition to attend a Maori college. His sisters went through learning the Maori language at school.

Little David was determined to get into the act. David was confident he too was going to be a swimmer.

“It’s so I can grow up and be a big swimmer like my brother and sisters,” he said.

Whilst Margaret (nee Parker] is of English and Scots descent, Rana’s parents are Tiramoke Tairawhiti Tauranga and Whakaronga Tamiparea (who was a niece of T.W. Ratana).

A cousin of the Taurangas, 16-year-old Christina Rukuwai also from Hamilton, is another national champion and New Zealand representative. Last season Rukuwai won the national senior 100 m freestyle title beating the 1986 Commonwealth Games freestyle swimming finalist Fiona McLay.

Rukuwai who holds the New Zealand junior women’s record for 100 m freestyle was in the team to Tasmania with Rongo last October. A close friend of the Taurangas, Rukuwai is a highly rated prospect for the next Olympics. She was desperately unlucky to miss out of the New Zealand team for the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games in clocking 0.6 s outside the NZ qualifying standard for the 100 m freestyle.

To give you an idea just what training is involved for competition swimming, last November Rongo swam skm-6km in each of the morning and evening sessions, five days a week, taking in all the strokes and including speed work. She concentrated on perfecting technique. Out of water, she does an hour of gym work each day and she usually runs one to two kilometres daily.

Mrs Tauranga said her three competition swimming children go through collectively 16 pairs of togs a year - that’s S6OO a year on current prices.