Mapua makes a splash!

On the 21st of February, a hoard of children made for the Riwaka pool. Why? Because of the Mapua School's annual swimming sports! 

Splashing and diving, the four houses competed for the highest amount of points. First up was the open, in which we had to compete in three different strokes. 

Then was the backstroke, leaving most of the contestants shivering in the cloudy, cold morning. The breaststroke was also a great success, with diving, splashing  and lots of fun! Thankfully, there were no injuries, Kurtis complained of a slightly bashed face! He accidentally got kicked in the face by another competitor.

Then it was the Butterfly demonstration  with only a few people attempting to reach the other end. Three of the four made it; one of them didn't. 

After that, the freestyle, with the racers diving in with a bang!(Literally!) Freestyle is the easiest stroke so almost everyone participated.The follow to freestyle was the little 'uns flutter board race! All the younger kids splashed their way to the end of the pool.

The final race was the teachers carry race. The rules? The teacher must remain on the chair. Rules broken? The teachers all started swimming! Although they did cling to the chair as well. Some very funny swimming techniques were demonstrated during that race!

As a perfect finish to a perfect day, the whole school dived in for 15 minutes of free time! "The only down side was that Red House won by over 200 points!" said Finlay.

At last, we returned to Mapua for the remaining hours of school!

Reported by Finlay,Tait and Nick