Jenny-May Clarkson is looking for a “third wheel” to join her and husband Dean as she confronts one of her fears – and the couple are running a competition to find the lucky person to make up their trio.
The former netballer is preparing to compete in the World Masters Games, which she is also an ambassador for.
Jenny-May will form one third of a triathlon team. She’ll complete the swim leg, and her husband Dean will cycle.
“I’ve always been about putting myself out there, so this is another way to do it,” the 1 News sports presenter tells the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly.
“So my husband and I are doing the triathlon. He’s doing the cycling leg, he loves cycling, and I’m swimming. I had an incident in the ocean where I was dumped by a wave when I was young and I’ve been afraid of the ocean since then. But I did the crossing from Devonport to the city a few years ago. I was terrified during different stages of that swim, but the relief and achievement I felt at the end was pretty cool.”
They don’t have a runner yet, so a competition is running on worldmastersgames2017.co.nz to find Team Clarkson’s third wheel. Anyone can enter, so if you think you’ve got what it takes to keep up with Jenny-May and Dean, and run five kilometres, you can submit and entry form.
The only condition? You have to be okay with going to the pub for team meetings!
Jenny-May is joined by fellow top Kiwi sportswomen squash star Susie Simcock, marathon legend Alison Roe, and former Silver Fern Anna Stanley as ambassadors for the Games, the world’s biggest sporting competition which will be held in New Zealand in April 2017.
The sporting spectacle is open to everyone, provided they are over the minimum age for their chosen sport – the youngest competitors will be 25 in the swimming category.
And each of the former sport stars have picked a new challenge to tackle for the event: Anna has decided to run in the Games, while Susie has chosen golf, and Allison has taken up golf.
And though they may have retired from their professional sporting days, the four former elite athletes say age should never be a barrier.
“I spent my 20s as an elite athlete and then in my 30s I had my kids,” says former Silver Fern Anna.
“Now I’m 40, it’s time to do something for me. And instead of playing netball, which is what everyone expected, I thought, let’s go back to my roots – I was a runner before I was a netballer, so I’m doing the 4 x 400m relay.”
For more on the foursome’s impressive lead-up to the World Masters Games, see the latest edition of New Zealand Woman’s Weekly.
