Former Tahuna Pupil & Olympic Cyclist Ali Shanks 'bubble life'

Ali Shanks and I first became friends in our Year 7 class at Tahuna a few years ago! She shares what has been happening with her family in Hamilton during lockdown.

Like many people across New Zealand, we have been enjoying the family time together and the opportunity to slow down. 

The daily bike adventures to find teddies with Lucas (5) and Abigail (2) are always a highlight. My husband Craig applied some Kiwi innovation and made the kids a “boat” (as they decided it was) by towing them around the back yard behind the mower. 

Craig has been continuing to work from home. Lots of re-planning going on for the new Tokyo Olympics and coaching the Men’s team from home, monitoring and prescribing their daily training on the home ergs & some solo road riding. 

I’ve continued my roles with the NZOC Athletes Commission where we were able to survey all NZ athletes and collectively advocate for NZ athletes to ensure the games were postponed. Also my Board role with HPSNZ has seen lots of re-thinking and planning on how we tackle Tokyo Olympics but also ensuring the full NZ Sport sector is able to recover and ensure long-term sustainability of High Performance Sport in NZ. 

We were meant to be visiting family & friends in Dunedin this week during school holidays so looking forward to getting down south one day soon!!