Montessa Tairakena and Campbell Crouch, the inaugural winners of the Secondary School sportsman and sportswoman awards at the Hamilton City Sports Awards, have already experienced success on the world stage.

Montessa Tairakena of Hamilton Girls' High, who recently returned from the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires after taking Gold in the Women’s Sevens, is a member of the Hamilton Girls’ High School team who won the NZSS Condor 7’s title in December 2017. She is a member of the NZ U18 Touch team, NZ U18 7s team and Waikato U18 Touch team. Montessa has captained her 1st XV Rugby team who won the Top four Championship and local competition in Hamilton.
 
Campbell Crouch, Hamilton Boys' High School, has a silver medal from the World Junior Rowing championships earlier this year staged in the Czech Republic. Campbell was a NZ representative in Men’s Coxless Four crew, placing second in the A final, breaking the current world record at regatta only to be broken later by the British crew. At NZ Nationals Campbell was in Waikato crews that were Under 19 Coxless 4 champions, runners-up in Senior eights and 3^rd place in coxed four. At NZ schools national Maadi Cup regatta he stroked the Boys' High School Coxed Four to Springbok shield victory and was member of  the runners-up in Premier eights in the Maadi cup. During the season he won titles North Island championships in fours and eights. He is the Hamilton Boys' High rowing captain.
 
The Secondary School Contribution to Sport Award for Hamilton district was taken out by Kacey Nicholls from Fraser High for her excellent leadership in school sport.