Ben Reiher

Tena koutou,
Ko Momoukai te maunga
Ko Nuhaka te awa
Ko Tākitimu te waka
Ko Kahungunu ki Nuhaka toku Marae
Ko Rongomaiwahine te wahine
Ko Kahukuranui te tekoteko
Ko Kahungunu ki Te Wairoa toku iwi
Ko Rakaipaaka toku hapu
No Porirua ahau
Ko Reiher toku whanau
Ko Ben toku ingoa
Nga mihi nui, kia koutou.

Kam na mauri, Kia ora, I am Ben Reiher. I whakapapa to Marakei Kiribati and Ngati Kahungunu and I was born and raised in Porirua. I’m currently focusing on developing my passion, personal skills, leadership capabilities, faith and sporting abilities.

I have always had this passion to make use of every minute I have on this earth and want to take every opportunity, moment and adventure that presents itself to me. I also lack the ability to just sit still and relax at times and will always be doing something physical or educational to maximise my potential across all aspects of my life.

My main points of passion is anything to do with the ocean, water, the outdoors and music. This includes, surfing, diving, sailing, competitive surf life saving, swimming and kayaking, mountain biking, tramping, skating and surf life saving beach patrols. For me its really just anything where I'm exercising, jamming on the guitar, in the outdoors, pushing my physical limits or pumping with adrenaline, that gets me super stoked.

I have many dreams and ambitions around my sporting endeavors, starting with being selected for the New Zealand development squads and national teams for both kayaking and surf life saving and then progress to doing these both professionally and competing at the surf life saving and kayaking world championships, and the nutri-grain ironman series.

My achievements towards this so far been competing at my fourth year of swimming nationals last year and ranked in the top 15 in the country for the 50m and 100m breaststroke despite dealing with multiple major injuries and being out of training for many months.

Also over the past 8 months I have competed in many national level surf life saving competitions across the motu, taking part in the Surf Lifesaving Nationals in March where I placed in all my heats and semifinals to make it to finals and be named in the Top 20 under-19 males in all my individual events, as well as placing 4th in the country for the Ironman team relay.

It is extremely exciting to even begin to think about the endless opportunities available, to be able to grow my leadership, physical and sporting abilities and connections, and my personal skills through the Pinnacle Programme, all while embarking on life changing adventures.