Parakiore: the venue behind my $10,000 Olympic Gold medal bet...

I’ll put $10,000 on the line. By 2045 there will be a gold medal won by a Christchurch local, who may not even be born yet, but who trains at Parakiore.

I’m pretty confident about this bet on a few levels.

1. Parakiore is going to be a magnet for sporty Cantabrians. The Olympic sized swimming pool will be the ONLY INDOOR competition level pool in Canterbury. There are outdoor 50m pools (Jellie Park and Temuka Outdoor pool). But indoor pools give full year-round training capability.
2. Most of you will forget this bet and I won’t actually have to payout, it’s so far away!

Why so confident?

The area is just so blessed with sporting talent. Namely because the people are so outdoors-y and you have all manner of sporting escapades on your doorstep. There’s not many places in the world where you can snowboard in the morning and surf in the afternoon!

But the earthquakes robbed us of some facilities.

QE2 for example, previously had an Olympic sized pool purpose built for the 1974 Commonwealth Games. Losing that pool in 2011 was devastating not just for the city as a whole, but especially for the kids from the east. The reduced sized replacement (25m) was a kick in the teeth for Brighton but also left a lot of budding athletes short-changed.

The impact of that on NZ’s medal count will never be able to be truthfully measured but athletes need the best facilities in which to hone their talents. Yes we have a few outdoor 50m pools but they’re seasonal, seasonal training doesn’t breed elite level athletes.

“But whats a few turns to an Olympic swimmer, surely they can handle it Ant?”

Yes and no…

Imagine Usian Bolt only having a 50m running track to practise on. He was just hitting his stride by then! That’s the equivalent of asking a swimmer to turn at the 25m mark. To give themselves the best chance of ultimate success, they need to mimic the competition environment. Flow and rhythm and pace are all dependent on their environment.

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“Why are you so passionate about this, Ant?”

Sport has shaped most of my adult life. I studied Sports Science at university (paired with English Literature, which still makes no sense, I could run track whilst reciting 18th Century romanticism poetry).

I met lifelong friends through football. I found my way into business because of a sporting environment here in Christchurch. Sport opens doors and gives people connection and purpose.

And I know first hand that environment matters. More than people realise.

Some talent needs to meet the environment to convert raw potential into a skilled individual.

I could have been the Worlds greatest diving champion, had the environment been there (probably not to be honest, I don’t like heights), but you get my drift.

So when you create a world-class facility, you unearth talent. You surface the ones who never get found because they never get exposed to the environment that brings their potential out.

Christchurch has thousands of kids right now who will never know they could’ve been incredible athletes because they simply don’t have access to the same training environment kids in other cities or overseas get. Parakiore changes that.

A proper indoor 50-metre pool is an enabler, it makes dreams viable. It turns “maybe” into “why not me?”.

You can be from Aranui, Linwood, Somerfield or Merivale, doesn’t matter, this complex is accessible to all and smack bang inside the four avenues of our city.

Parakiore could very well offer talented kids, from all backgrounds, a pathway from being an energetic, talented local to national rep. Because talent is often distributed evenly throughout society. Opportunity isn’t.

Cultivating potential and converting it to elite performance is beneficial to many and with so few indoor Olympic, competition sized pools, I wouldn’t be surprised to start seeing ‘sporting migration’ to Christchurch. And Parakiore isn’t some elitist, ‘out of reach to most’ facility. This is accessible, council owned therefore affordable. We are lucky to have the anchor project (that has taken a long, long time and cost a lot of money I may add), be delivered to our city.

We can already boast of a world class mountain bike park (as voted by Red Bull).

We have Te Kaha - the central city stadium opening next year.

We have Christchurch United Football Club - which has benefited massively from Russian owner Slava’s private investment over the past 10 years and is home to one of the most impressive football set ups I’ve seen in this country. They have big goals too, to bring professional football to the South Island of New Zealand. How I would love to be growing up again with this facility on the doorstep. For context, I used to play football against an old wooden electricity box on a neighbouring estate. If the ball went inside, we would dodge the generators to fetch it back. Far cry from the beautiful omni-turf set up at CFC!

Oh yeah, and the Crusaders don’t go too bad either…

For active, sporty people, this really is the place to be.

What I’m trying to get to is; when you give a region a proper high-performance hub, you lift everything: clubs get stronger, coaches stay instead of leaving, schools start pushing kids into programmes and suddenly you’ve got a conveyor belt of athletes who don’t just participate…they compete on the global stage. That’s how winning cultures are built, by design.

So yes, I’ll happily put ten grand (we’re not adjusting for inflation by the way) on the line and look like an idiot if I’m wrong - but I’m confident I won’t be. The day Parakiore opens, Christchurch shifts gears completely. Kids who’ve never had access to a proper indoor long-course pool suddenly get one, and that alone changes the trajectory for dozens of future athletes.

But Parakiore isn’t just an Olympic pool. It will be New Zealand's largest indoor and aquatic sports centre!

We’re talking a full high-performance ecosystem: 9 indoor courts for netball to futsal and more. There will be recovery suites, teaching spaces, dry-land swim conditioning rooms and spectator facilities that actually make parents want to stick around. Parents get convenience, safety, plenty of parking right inside the four aves. It will bring so many people into the city centre, again!

Christchurch has always had the talent, I’ve seen this first hand. It’s always had the work ethic. What we’ve been missing is the environment where that talent can be cultivated properly. Parakiore, in my humble opinion, goes a long way to filling that gap. It’s not just another recreation centre; it’s the spark that creates future Olympians and this is how gold medallists are made (I hope…)!

And if for by some chance we don't get a Gold Medalist, I'll donate $10,000 to a local sporting club, but I feel my bet is pretty safe!

P.S. Shameless property plug. I did a video with Sophie Berry from Harcourts who is helping us sell 16 Roker Street, Somerfeild. I got on my bike and cycled along the safe cycleways from the development to Parakiore - it took me 10 mins. 10 mins! To this facility. So if you have aspirations to be the next Michael Phelps, you can be just 10 mins away too…!

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