Latest news with #Fa'avae
Scoop
28-05-2025
- Sport
- Scoop
Motueka High School Team To Tackle One NZ GODZONE With Mentorship By Nathan Fa'avae
Leo Easton (18), Nika Rayward (19), Louie Burger (17) and Tide Fa'avae (19) are one of the youngest teams to take on the 5 - 7-day expedition event. They will do so under the guidance of multiple adventure racing world champion and a respected leader in the sport Nathan Fa'avae. For these young adventurers, the journey to the prestigious event has been nothing short of an adventure racing fairytale, according to Fa'avae. 'In 2015, when our eldest daughter Jessie started at Motueka High, my wife Jodie launched an Adventure Club for Year 9 students to introduce them to outdoor activities and build a team capable of competing in secondary school adventure races, including the Hillary Challenge. What started as a group of 8 enthusiastic students quickly gained traction with the team participating in regional and national events.' 'Fast forward to 2019, the team earned a spot at the Hillary Challenge finals, where they finished a remarkable 3rd place. In 2020, Motueka High School returned with renewed confidence and clinched victory. The team won a second time in 2022, and in 2024, made history again by winning the Hillary Challenge with a perfect score - the highest possible achievement - with Leo, Louie, Tide and Nika making up half that team.' Fa'avae has had a remarkable adventure racing career spanning 40 expedition-length events around the globe and, as captain of Team Avaya, won most chapters of One NZ GODZONE since its inception. He says while tempted to return to racing at the event in Marlborough, a region he considers a second home, he's ready to turn his attention to mentoring a young team. 'I've accepted that my competitive days are behind me, but I still have the energy to contribute. This group includes current Motueka High School students and alumni - motivated 17 and 18-year-olds - eager to step into the GODZONE arena. Their commitment speaks volumes about the event's mana and its ability to inspire across generations.' 'My children grew up around GODZONE. I won the first one at age 40 and the final one at 50 - it bookended that decade of my life. My youngest daughter, Tide, was five when she attended the inaugural GODZONE and will be 19 at the event. GODZONE has always been on her bucket list and now that it's back, she finally gets to participate." 'The return of GODZONE reminds us of the strength and future of adventure racing in New Zealand. It's great to see a new generation stepping forward. When young athletes line up for GODZONE, they're not just doing a race—they're stepping into a tradition that challenges and defines people. It's the ultimate legacy event they want to be measured against.' AWS Legal is supporting the team by sponsoring their One NZ GODZONE entry, which AWS Legal Partner Damien Pine says is an exciting step for the firm. 'The sponsorship aligns with our commitment to positively impacting our communities, particularly through participation in sport. We have learned from our involvement with One NZ GODZONE athletes over the years that mental strength and resilience are the cornerstone of their success. There is something unique in the gruelling and rewarding challenge of the race that creates extraordinary growth in the individuals who compete.' He says by participating in the ultimate New Zealand adventure race, the young high school team will test themselves mentally and physically and, importantly, take learnings back to everyday life to set themselves up for success. 'In a time when we observe people struggling with the resilience to deal with everyday life, we wanted to help young people learn the valuable lessons that an event like One NZ GODZONE can provide firsthand. Partnering with the team and Nathan Fa'avae as a mentor is the perfect way. We are proud to support them on this journey.' Quick Facts
Telegraph
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Tom Savage: I am more nervous about doing the haka than playing Super Rugby
Tom Savage is trying to explain a career trajectory that resembles something close to the 1990s TV Show Quantum Leap where the main character, Sam Beckett, starts each episode occupying a stranger's body. For eight years, it was perfectly normal as he made nearly 200 appearances for Gloucester in the second row. Then, as Savage says, it gets 'a bit funky' as he swapped Kingsholm for Suntory Sungoliath in Japan and now the 35-year-old Londoner finds himself captaining Moana Pasifika, a team designed for players of Pacific Island heritage, in Super Rugby. 'I am probably in as much disbelief as anyone that I've ended up here,' Savage says. 'I still don't really know how it all happened, but it is the coolest thing that ever happened to me.' Savage is the only European player at Moana Pasifika but it is a mark of his popularity that he took over the captaincy from injured New Zealand flanker Ardie Savea in the defeat by the Chiefs last weekend. While much of the novelty of playing with and against All Blacks on a weekly basis has started to dissipate for Savage, who is in his second season at Moana, the prospect of performing the club's cultural hakas, the Tau Moana and Fa'avae, still fills him with terror. 'I'm more nervous about both of those than I am about any aspect of the game,' Savage says. 'In this team, you're either from the Pacific Islands, or you've been born and raised in New Zealand, and they have been doing it from day dot. My eldest is now five years old, and she's already doing some form of haka at school. 'I think being a bit older now, I don't get embarrassed. I'm prepared just to put the work in. I'm not going to be as good as those boys at it. If you watch me, I might be a beat or two out and I might get the odd action wrong, but just as long as I'm trying as hard as I can I don't think anyone's going to have any issues with that. It is awesome to be a part of, but it is incredibly surreal.' To rewind slightly, Savage was picked up by Gloucester in 2011 while playing for Hartpury University. He loved playing for the Cherry and Whites and never envisioned representing another club but then there was a change of coaching staff and a new contract was slow in materialising in 2018. His agent then told him Suntory Sungoliath were in the market for a second row of his build, which led to some frantic Googling. A week later, he had signed. Savage would spend four years in Japan, where both his children were born, although he never fully got to grips with the cultural differences. 'I attacked the languages as hard as I possibly could,' he says. 'I was by no means fluent, but I got to what I call cafe and supermarket Japanese. I could hold my own in a restaurant. 'I often say, with Japan, there's foreign countries and then there's foreign countries. Everything is so different there. A lot of it in a really good way. You can leave your wallet and phone on a table, walk away and it would still be there hours later. But then when my wife gave birth they don't actually have pain relief in the hospitals. There's not even gas and air, so my wife just breathed her way through it.' After four seasons, Savage was again looking for a new challenge and asked his agent if there was anything going in Super Rugby. 'Like many people my age back home, I think I first fell in love with rugby watching Super Rugby on Saturday mornings,' Savage says. The answer came back that Moana Pasifika, then in their second season, were interested and so Savage was packing his bags for Auckland. 'They were having a bit of a changeover around the squad and staff and were trying to build their way up a little bit. They were looking for someone like myself, an experienced, professional guy in that lock space, and sort of my name fitted the bill. That's how it all came about, really. 'The demographic of the team is a lot of Samoan and Tongan players, but there's Fijians and guys from Cook Islands and Niue. And then there's me. That is the make-up of the team. Tana Umaga, the head coach, is trying to build an identity that we are unapologetically Pacific Islanders.' It did not take long for the team to accept Savage, so much so that the Tongan contingent have tried to claim him as 'Tomasi'. 'We work on our cultural roots on a daily basis,' Savage says. 'These guys are playing for where they're from, which is a super powerful thing, but, fundamentally, we are still a rugby team and anything that was new or different to me very much just became the norm after a week or two. I think anytime you join a rugby team the most important thing is that you buy into everything that is put in front of you and work your socks off. That's what I did and will keep trying to do.'
