Skating success for Waikato University Student

Media Release
12 April 2011

Skating success for Waikato University Student

Waikato University student and New Zealand Ice Fern Anjali Thakker is finding sport is helping her see the world and become a gold medallist.

One of the youngest Ice Fernz at 17, Anjali recently returned from three weeks in Europe where her team competed, and won the 2011 IIHF World Women’s Championship Division IV at the World Ice Hockey Championships.

Just over a week later her love of hockey, this time inline, sees her passport getting another workout as she heads to Australia’s Gold Coast on April 14 to compete in a national team for the Inline Oceania Championship.

Anjali will spend 10 days competing in Australia, but she admits travel commitments and studying fulltime can sometimes collide. “The first couple of days since I got back were a bit depressing because you miss all your team mates. And now I have a couple of days to catch up on three weeks of lectures.”

Anjali is a Hillary Scholar at Waikato University where she is in her first year of a Bachelor of Science.

Sir Edmund Hillary Scholarships are the University of Waikato’s most prestigious scholarships and are awarded to students who are high academic achievers and who show potential in the arts or sport. Scholars have their course fees covered, receive specialist coaching and mentoring and take part in personal development and leadership programmes.

The Ice Fernz, which is mainly New Zealand based with some members in the United States and Canada, started the Europe tour with a 10-day training camp in Finland, before flying to Iceland to compete.

They won all four of their games and beat Romania by a convincing 7-2 to take out the division.

The 10 days of training helped establishing connections on the ice and building a team culture Anjali says.

The next time the Ice Fernz head to the World Champs it will be in division three, but she says the “long term goal is to get to the Olympics”.

Anjali had been a Hillcrest High School student and enrolled at Waikato University in order to pursue her sport and BSc. She received a School Leaver Scholarship on top of the Hillary Scholarship.
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