Christchurch Avon is one of the largest and most successful clubs in Canterbury with over 300 Senior Masters and Children athletes active in our distinctive blue and orange singlets.
At Christchurch Avon we believe that athletics is a great sport and believe that every member should be supported to achieve as far as they want to in the sport. This may be selection as a national representative, improving your time for a fun run, or just having mates to train and compete with.
We also see value of athletics disciplines to many other sports. Running, jumping and throwing are foundation skills for sports as diverse as hockey, basketball & netball, triathlon & duathlon, and all codes of football. Many of our members, both seniors and children participate, in other sports; for some athletics is their secondary interest, for others it’s their primary sport.
We consider that all the disciplines have value and complement each other so that children should learn a wide range of Athletics disciplines – running long, sprinting, jumping, hurdling and throwing. Accordingly, we take a holistic approach exposing all our Summer children athletes to the full range of athletics disciplines to develop skills, strength and coordination. (Tom Walsh was a successful high jumper as a child). Sports Science shows that children should not specialise before 14 and later if possible and that they do benefit from a broad range of strength, coordination and skill programs. Even our winter only athletes are encouraged to develop strength and coordination as well as aerobic endurance.
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To provide an environment where athletes of all abilities can achieve and compete.
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The Club of Choice - Christchurch Avon.
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Encourage all Athletes to develop to be the best they want to be.
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Success Oriented, Honesty & Integrity, Respect and inclusiveness, Contributing to your Community, Support the team with pride in the jersey.
To view the CHAV constitution, click here
Some of our recent successes
Our Summer children’s section has won Canterbury trophies several times and had great success at Colgate Games. This highlights our team approach and structure as winning requires competing as a team across multiple events and disciplines.
We are current Canterbury Winter Club of Year and winner for 7 of past 8 years. This award is based on depth of participation over the whole winter season across all grades from under 8 to over 65s.
International representatives: in recent years one member was selected for the World Junior Athletics, and two have represented NZ at World Mountain Running Championships. Several of our young athletes have represented NZ at inter-schools’ competitions with Australia.
Our Junior men are winners two years in a row and runner up third year; of the National Road Relay, reflecting our team depth and the way we train and compete.
Currently we have 4 Athletes on US university scholarships and one at a NZ university. These scholarships offer a life changing experience, educational opportunity as well as development of your athletic ability.
At the 2019 National Track and Field Championships one of our runners won the open 3000 metres Steeplechase.
Club Meeting Places
Our Clubrooms are on the Burnside Highschool grounds, Greers Road Burnside and we share the track with the school. Coaching nights and Club activity are Monday and Wednesday evenings in summer for Children with inter-club on Saturday mornings. For Summer Seniors, there is also training Monday and Wednesday evenings at Jellie Park and Saturday afternoon inter-club competition at Nga Puna Wai.
In winter the children’s section has group training sessions from the Clubrooms on Monday and Wednesday. There are also runs from other venues on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Club runs are often from the clubrooms on Saturday afternoons, but on inter-club event days we will meet at the event location.