On Monday we had our first three games. At this point we didn't know many of the competitors as they were from many different schools from around New Zealand. The first three games were hard. It was constantly going down our end then unanticipated went down there end of the field. Unfortunately we lost all of our games on Monday, but we all had fun trying.
On Tuesday the team played another three games. I was at BMX on Tuesday so I didnt play. But I heard lots about the day from the Football team. Once again we lost all our games. but they were actually close games. The first couple games we did reasonably well in. The team managed to lose by one or two goals. The final game, not so much. We lost about 6-0. Meanwhile I was at the Tauranga BMX Track doing time trials. Essentially what happens is that each rider has a small, yellow transponder on the front forks of their bike. This device tracks how long your race is from start to finish, and they are exact times too. Each rider then races on the track twice (by them selves) to get an individual time put under their name. Overall I got 44.75 seconds for my first trial and 45.65 seconds for my second run through. For this event I got ninth overall.
On Wednesday morning it was an early start, getting up at about 5:45 to make lunches, pack day packs, get gear on and drive to the sports ground. Our first game was at 9:30am and we were tired, but still strenuous enough to carry on. We thankfully drew our first game 0-0 to MataMata Intermediate School. I really enjoyed this game more than the rest that I had played, because it was more even and Tai had the ball more, which gave us confidence. Unfortunately their defense was really onto it and stopped us fro getting a goal multiple times. The next game was also very even, miserably in the rain we lost 2-0. And in the last game of the day we lost again 2-0. After the last game we were all feeling down, wet and tired. For Hannah this was worse as she was feeling really sick and not bothered to do much activeness on the field. After all of the games we headed down to the Mount Manganui Hot Pools for a relaxing swim. One hour later we were all freshened up and ready to head back to the motel.
On Thursday I had BMX again, but this time it was actual racing. In this event we had to race against one another to get a placing. We still had the transponders on our bikes, just in case we had a "photo finish", but times instead. In this event I got ninth again. Winning my B-final with two points off from making the final. In this event we had five races and who ever had the top eight placings got a spot in the final, unfortunately for me I was two points off. So I had to go into the B-Final, and I infact won it, getting the overall placing off ninth. Back at Blake park, we had one game at 9:30 again and we didn't have much talking going on on the field so we lost again 8-0. I was luckily back at 2:30 in time for our second game at 3pm. For everone else it was great I was back, because we finally had a sub as Sam left, Anita was sick and Hannah wasn't feeling well either. So we had a sub so everyone can change if required. Once again we played against MataMata, but we ended up losing 1-0 in the last minute of the game. At the end we were gutted getting the placin 39th out of 39, but Anna (our coach who had to leave for family reasons) said we had to stay for prizgiving at 3pm the next day.
On Friday we went around some of the sports to watch the finals and see how our school teams were/are going. All other teams got good placings and scores through their pools and games. Then it came to the prize giving. They first up announced the Fair Play award (out of 98 teams), with out notice we won it. 2017 was the first year of the Fair Play award and once we heard that we got it we were literally screaming with excitement, not believing that we had won it. We all got a medal each and a trophy to take back to school. After getting the award we still didn't believe it. Overall AIMS week was really fun and I was lucky to go. If anyone from New Zealand that is either a year 7 or 8, then I strongly advice you to go.
Tuhinga o mua
