After last years amazing experience at our first State Youth Games, we piled back into the Troopy and descended on Lardner Park in Warrugal for another fantastic Games. And we certainly weren’t disappointed.
We arrived to the joyous sight of a HUGE white Marquee! This big, WARM, comfortable palace, was our home for the next 3 nights. No freezing cold tent pegs! No Mud! No food blowing off our plates! Not to mention the MASSIVE Rocket Engine GAs Heater!!! It was shear heaven. Spoilt? You betcha! But we deserved it – we fundraised heaps.
13 Members and 4 Leaders competed in 14 different sports. From Chess, Scrabble, Uno and Nintendo Wii to Basketball, Badminton, Table Tennis and Ultimate. Everyone competed with great Spirit, win or lose and we all had a brilliant time.
A few late night runs to Safeway for Snacks, a HUGE indoor Inflatable Maze Race, the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and a great Camp Fire – all added to another incredible State Youth Games.
Congratulations to everyone who competed for AKA. Out of 70 Youth Groups totalling over 3000 kids, AKA came 42nd Overall. In the Russ Croxford Ladder – AKA came 7th and in the Small Groups category – AKA came 4th out of 22.
AKA came home with 5 Champions. Olly Loughnan – U15 Cross Country, Tim Turner – U15 Badminton, Seb Torre – U18 Pool, Jack Thornton – Open Darts and Andrew “Grunt” Gruntovs – Open Uno. We also had 4 individual Runners Up and 1 Team Runner Up. But it was really just the fun of playing the sports. Nothing is taken too seriously. There are no real super stars. Most people don’t wear the right sports clothes or have the correct equipment. It’s just a whole lot of fun. If you are interested – you can check out all of the AKA SYG 2014 Team Results here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/syg/attachments/735/original/syg-2014-results-aka.pdf?1402296053 WELL DONE TO EVERYONE!!!
I was extremely POUD of everyone especially at the Presentations of the Closing Ceremony, in front of 3500 people in a HUGE pavilion, Zac Rushbrook from AKA was presented with the “Marc Hughes Award”. An award to an individual that performed the highest act of Games Spirit. After Zac completed his 6 klm Mountain Bike Ride and came 2nd, he noticed that a girl competing after him was struggling to complete her 3 x 2klm laps. Zac rode with her for the last 4klms and encouraged her to finish the race. Congratulations Zac! Well done. Zac’s Presentation and Acceptance brought a tear to my eye.
A HUGE Thank You to all the Parents for their support and kind donations and pre cooking of food. It all went sown a treat. Very much appreciated. Thank you to Jack, Ben and Paul for all your assistance. It couldn’t happen without you.
THANK YOU to all the Members for a SENSATIONAL weekend!
I can’t WAIT until 2015!
Grunt.