I have been covering the New Zealand Breakers Basketball Team all season both at the North Shore Events Centre and also at the larger Vector Arena which they have managed to sell out more than once with a capacity crowd of over 9000.  Having made the finals and won the first game at home against the Wildcats, the second game away, they missed taking the championship by one point so it came back to Auckland’s Vector Arena for a thrilling decider which they took and thus back to back years as champions. Can they make it three in a row?

At the 2010 World Junior Championships Jackson “Jacko” Gill won a gold medal in the shot put at only 15 years, 213 days, surpassing Usain Bolt (who was 15 years, 332 days old when he won the 200 metres in 2002) as the youngest-ever male junior champion. This weekend I was covering the New Zealand Athletic Championships and Jacko was out to beat his previous records. Whilst he did not achieve any new record, he was the biggest crowd puller with everyone surrounding the shot put circle to watch his attempts. In a surprise decision he afterwards announced that he would not be competing in the London Olympics but concentrating on The World Junior Championships instead.