The Moana Nui-a-Kiwa Pools in Māngere played host to an incredible bombastic competition on Auckland Anniversary Weekend. The event saw the suburb's best proponents of the "manu" trying to qualify for the World Manu Championships that are jumping off next month at Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour. For the uninitiated, water bombing or "manus" involve people jumping into water onto their lower back, which is then judged based on style and splash size. Event organiser and Rep FM founder Toko Manuel says seeing the joy it brought to so many, made all the hard work behind the scenes worth it. “It was insane seeing the smiles on all those kids faces. It was priceless.” Toko ran the event alongside his son JHustle who also performed between the heats, including his track "Crouch, Jump and Tuck It" that was specifically written for the competition. Toko says it's great being able to combine music and sports. “It was just something that JHustle’s interested in and so we wanted to just support the sport that we could see a lot of people wanted to come and do it here.” And the ultimate goal is to see bombing become another sport for Māngere’s best to gain national recognition in. “We're looking at creating a team for Māngere then we'll go against other areas, like how you've got sports teams like the Māngere East Hawks who go and play other teams around the city. “We’ve got the Māngere bombing pool and so it makes sense to invite other areas to come here and then vice versa.” Given the event took place one year since the pools were used as a evacuation centre during the Auckland Anniversary floods, for Moana-a-Kiwa Pools centre manager Waitangi Mika, it reinforced how important this facility is to the wider community. “It’s a community centre - not just a pool and it was a prime example of community collaboration."
- 275times