Tātai Whetū Waitaha provides opportunities for young sportspeople who face barriers that restrict or prevent them from achieving their potential.
Athlete Support Team
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Ged Robinson - Athlete Lead
Ged Robinson, who has a Diploma in positive psychology from the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience, is the programme manager of Tātai Whetū Waitaha where he provides aspiring sportspeople with the tools, skills, and resources to help realise their potential. “Everyone has dreams, wants to be the best version of themselves and succeed in their chosen field – my calling is to help people on this journey." Ged is also the founder of the charitable organisation BetterMan (CC61904) that aims to improve men's wellbeing and mental health and help them become better versions of themselves.
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Tayla Bruce - Athlete Lead
ayla Bruce, who manages the mid-Canterbury region. Tayla is the reigning world champion for lawn bowls and won at the Commonwealth Games. As a Tātai Whetū alum and world champion, Tayla has understood the minefield of juggling sport and study commitments whilst also performing at the peak of your sport. Holding current qualifications in teaching and still competing at an elite level, Tayla uses these skills to understand not only the sportsperson but the environment which they are in. Tayla is passionate about making a difference in sportspeople’s lives, connecting with them and their support network to ensure they leave behind a lasting legacy, whatever that may be
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Sam Wells - Trainer
Sam is deeply dedicated to helping others reach their full potential. His own health and fitness journey began after a major back injury, which sparked a passion for learning and led him to earn a Certificate in Exercise at NZIS. From there, he expanded his expertise with additional certifications in Performance Nutrition, Strength Systems, and Programme Design.
At Tātai Whetū, Sam finds immense fulfilment in his role. He values the opportunity to build strong, personal relationships with each athlete. This involves a deep dive into their individual sports, understanding their unique challenges and strengths, and collaborating closely with other experts and coaches. Sam’s approach is holistic; he’s not only interested in physical training but also in the athlete’s overall well-being.
His primary goal is to foster a safe and supportive community where athletes feel heard, valued, and celebrated. Sam believes that a nurturing environment is crucial for athletes to excel both in their sports and everyday lives.
Board of Trustees
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Annette Purvis (Chair)
ONZM, New Zealand Olympic Committee Board Member, Athletics New Zealand (former Chair), World Athletics -Council member, Development Commission & Gender Leadership Taskforce member. Currently EM, Events and Natural Hazards Claims at IAG.
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Georgina Toomey
Former New Zealand and Canterbury representative in both swimming and surf lifesaving. Specialist corporate lawyer heading up the New Zealand legal team for LegalVision.
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Peter Cox
QSM, New Zealand Academy of Sport (South Island) founding trustee and board member, former High Performance Sport New Zealand board member, Canterbury Hockey administrator. Advisor – private, public and not-for-profit entities, and Chartered Accountant.
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Dr. Selwyn Maister
QSM, former New Zealand hockey player and Olympic gold medallist, Hockey National selector, coach and administrator, Secretary General Oceania Paralympic Committee, and various governance roles in business and sport, including former president Paralympics New Zealand. PhD in organic chemistry.
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Tony Hall
CNZM, founding director of Community Colleges New Zealand, former Chancellor Lincoln University, former chair and current trustee of North Canterbury Sport and Recreation Trust, and previous governance roles including, NZQA, TEC and NZOC. Mentor and sponsor to adaptive sportspeople.
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Richard Smith
Performance Consultant for Lightsmith Performance Consultancy. Richard is passionate about working with people and helping them grow professionally and personally. His clients include Synlait Dairy, Ngāi Tahu, Bupa Health Care, NZ Spinal Trust, NZ Rugby, Farmlands and Lincoln University
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Dallas Seymour
Of Ngāti Hikairo descent, a former member of the NZ Olympic Committee Athletes Commission, former New Zealand rugby sevens player, Commonwealth gold medallist, Māori All Black and All Black. Currently programme leader, Planning and Relationships at Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.
Holistic Support Team
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Ilia Lindsay - Psychology Lead
Ilia is a registered psychologist specialising in child and family psychology and sport and performance psychology. She has spent much of her career in specialist mental health services throughout the country and has experience supporting adolescents and young adults with anxiety, neurodiversity, mood and emotion regulation difficulties and disordered eating. She now runs a local private practice where she supports young people and their whanau with all things mental health, wellbeing as well as athlete performance. She has worked with amateur through to professional athletes, from recreational teams to Olympians and Commonwealth representatives. She is passionate about supporting athlete performance and mental wellbeing from a holistic perspective so athletes can train and perform to their full potential. She has a wealth of knowledge across the diverse clinical roles she has held and additional therapeutic training in: CBT, DBT, ACT, PCIT, Solution focused therapy, Maudsley and Mindfulness based therapies.
At Tatai Whetu Waitaha, Ilia leads our psychology and mental skills framework. In this role, she provides mentorship and support to the athlete leads and mental skills coaches. Ilia is committed to mental health advocacy and plays a pivotal role in developing initiatives that uplift, upskil, and enhance the well-being of our athlete community. This role ensures that mental health and wellbeing are prioritised alongside athletic performance, fostering an environment where athletes can thrive both on and off the field/turf/pool/ring/gym
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Amanda Johnanson - Mental Skills
Amanda Johanson is passionate about people. She is a mother of three and an adventurer. Throughout her life, she was an elite athlete, earning a full athletic scholarship to the University of Denver (USA) for gymnastics and later competing at the World Cup level in aerials ski jumping for the USA. She holds a master’s degree in applied psychology from the University of Canterbury. Amanda has worked with athletes ranging from novice to professional and Olympic levels in over 35 different sports. She loves working with TTW athletes, who are passionate and eager to improve and better themselves. She feels honored to be a part of the program.
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Anna Simsic - Athlete Planning
Anna is a former high-performance athlete who represented New Zealand at two Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games where she won a gold and two silver medals. She was consistently ranked in the top 10 in the world during her swimming career with a highlight of setting a world short-course record in 1992. Anna is a key facilitator and member of the Performance Wellbeing team and is passionate about working with people to realise their full potential. She believes in a values and strengths based approach and brings energy, compassion and humour to the work she does. Anna is an expert facilitator in the area of wellbeing, high performance sport and balance. As a proud mother of three, Anna understands the challenges of juggling motherhood and work life. Anna also works for High Performance Sport NZ as an Athlete Life Advisor.
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Conrad Goodhew - Nutrition
Since the age of 4, he has been playing sport. Participating in everything from rugby and cricket to squash and golf – all at provincial and international representative level, loves the outdoors where he surfs and dives (among everything else). He can understand the pressures that sportsmen and women go through, both physiological and psychological. Conrad works with young rugby players, track and field athletes, Crossfit Games athletes, professional golfers, endurance athletes, and professional rugby players (to name a few). His drive is to start changing the way the health and fitness industry sees clients as more than just a 'quick fix' for marketing and driving sustainable change to inspire generations to follow.
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Dr John Hellemans - Medical
John is one of the founders of SportsMed, the first multidisciplinary sports medicine clinic in the Southern Hemisphere. John is also known as a high-performance coach, having coached 6 world champions and 6 Olympians in the sport of triathlon over the years. He established the highly successful New Zealand Triathlon High Performance Programme in 1996. His special interests are: Injury diagnosis and treatment recommendations, Exercise-related medical issues like excessive fatigue, exercise-induced asthma, iron deficiency anemia, Perineural glucose injection therapy (P.I.T) for chronic (neuropathic) pain, Exercise prescription for patients with chronic medical conditions and Altitude training and simulation.
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Dr Rob Campbell - Medical
Rob has been a Sports Medicine doctor at the former SportsMed since 1989. He passed Specialist Sports Physician exams in 1994 and was the 1st in Canterbury to do so. SportsMed has been a training practice for over 20 years for Sports medicine registrars all of whom have passed. Dr. Campbell has been the training supervisor for the registrars for over 20 years and will continue to do so at Sports Clinic.
Rob worked as the Crusaders and Canterbury rugby doctor for 5 years from 1997, as NZ Cricket doctor for 10 years and Coast to Coast Medical Director for 30+ years.
Rob practices what he preaches – he was, NZ Hockey rep, Canterbury rep at school level in hockey, rugby, cricket and golf. Has run 2 marathons and still plays golf on a single-figure handicap.
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Dr Kathereine Grellman
Katherine has moved from Australia to join the team at Sports Clinic as a Senior Sports Medicine Registrar. She grew up on a cotton farm in rural New South Wales, before moving to Sydney and then Albury to complete her medical studies. Katherine then began her training in Sports medicine in Adelaide, where she worked with Cycling Australia, South Australian Sports Institute, South Australian Cricket and the Woodville West Torrens Australian Rules Football club. Katherine also travelled to the World Championships and the Paris World Cup with the Australian Open Water Swim team in 2022.
Katherine is passionate about working with every day athletes and weekend warriors to help achieve their exercise goals, and get people back to work. She is skilled in ultrasound injection techniques and exercise prescription, to ensure you remain fit while managing your injury. Katherine is also interested in medical conditions in athletes.
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Jess Moulds - Nutrition
Ex-professional netball player, Registered Dietitian, and mother of three, Jess Moulds established Relish Nutrition with a vision of helping others find a way of living and eating that feels right for them. She firmly believes there is no one size fits all answer to good nutrition.
Jess' first memories of food and nutrition come from her upbringing on a farm. She hasn’t always had a healthy relationship with food, despite learning where food came from and being savvy in the kitchen with her mum. Very tall from a young age, food became a way to change her body rather than nourish it. She was scouted for professional netball as she moved to University studying to become a Dietitian. Sports performance and nutrition became her passion as she was living and breathing both the practical and scientific aspects of performance at the same time. Jess played professional netball for over 10 years whilst completing her Masters in Nutrition and setting up her own nutrition business. Jess also went on to specialise in gut health and disordered eating. With over 10 years experience working with individuals on a range of different health issues, she is passionate about helping people develop a positive relationship with food and finding a balance between health/performance and fun/food enjoyment.
As a mother of three, her life has slowed back down yet sped up. She often finds herself time-poor, like many people today, when it comes to feeding our little ones as well as fuelling ourselves. Hence her passion for simplifying nutrition for families and busy individuals.
Jess is an experienced public speaker who loves presenting and making good nutrition feel fun and achievable for all.
Qualifications: Bachelor of Science majoring in Human Nutrition, Master of Dietetics, NZ Registered Dietitian, Nutritionist, Sports Nutritionist
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Mike Stevenson - Physiotherapy
Mike is Clinical Director and co-owner of Christchurch Physiotherapy and Sports Clinic. He is a physiotherapist with degrees in Physiotherapy and Sport Science, as well as post Graduate qualifications in Sport Physiotherapy, and Strength & Conditioning. His career has crossed over Sports Science, and Physiotherapy allowing him to combine his comprehensive knowledge of sporting performance and his enthusiasm for helping guide young athletes. Mike has over 15 years of experience working with a wide variety of athletes from youth developmental roles to professionals both in New Zealand and internationally; at Harvard University, High Performance Sport NZ, NZ Cricket, NZ Softball, Canterbury Cricket, Netball Mainland, dance and gymnastics, among many others. He has cohesive knowledge of sports performance as a coach and athlete, having played representative rugby as well as competing in athletics, New Zealand’s Coast to Coast and other multisport events.
With these experiences and qualifications Mike has a unique position in the industry, being able to encourage and bring out the best in an athlete or team. Having a passion for working with youth athletes, by supporting the health and wellbeing of our talented young people will ensure longevity of their career for years to come.
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Kylie Cox - Physiotherapy
Kylie is a Physiotherapist with post graduate qualifications in Sports Medicine and a Master in Sport Science. Her background is in netball and more recently in triathlon and endurance sports. Kylie is Director of The Healthy Athlete Project, her special interest being the female athlete. She works both clinically as a Physiotherapist and as a Health Educator, raising awareness on female athlete health related issues. Kylie has worked most recently on a female health education initiative for Netball New Zealand’s NetballSmart programme. She works in musculoskeletal private practice in Christchurch and with Basketball New Zealand’s Female U17 National team.
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Richard Smith - Coaching & Leadership
Richard runs private performance consultancy, LightSmith, and he has worked with many NZ public and private corporates and sporting organisations. Over a career spanning 30 years, Richard has worked in a number of world-leading high performance roles including; the High-Performance Coach Development Manager for NZ Cricket, High-Performance Leader at Crusaders Super Rugby Club, High-Performance Coaching Consultant for High Performance Sport NZ. Prior to his various roles in High Performance, Richard worked in education as a teacher, HOD, Assistant Principal and Lecturer. He is a graduate of the University of Otago and University of Canterbury. A rugby coach at various levels for the last 22 years including Canterbury U19, Colts, Canterbury B, and in 2007 a World Championship winning coach with NZ U19 at the IRB U19 World Championships in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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Todd Astle - Mental Skills Coach
For the past 18 years Todd has been a professional cricket player, representing both Canterbury and the New Zealand Black Caps in that time. He has also played over 100 first-class matches for Canterbury and is the association's leading all-time wicket taker. Having experienced numerous challenges, triumphs and setbacks, both on and off the field, Todd has harnessed his experiences, learnings and formal studies, to create his mental skills business ‘Innerspin’. For the past 6 years he has worked with athletes and teams across a wide array of sports. His aim is to educate, inspire and empower others through mental skills coaching. Mental skills coaching helps to create greater awareness and an optimal mindset, to enhance an athletes ability to tap into their full capabilities and assists them to become the best version of themselves.