{"id":182330,"date":"2025-12-13T20:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T20:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/182330\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T20:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T20:05:10","slug":"special-olympics-tauranga-runner-te-huia-apaapa-shines-at-national-summer-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/182330\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Olympics Tauranga runner Te Huia Apaapa shines at National Summer Games"},"content":{"rendered":"
His foster mother, Dawn Staples, said running quickly became a powerful outlet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got him into running because it helps with his autism; it burns off some of that energy. We first joined an athletics club when he was 9, then discovered Special Olympics,\u201d said Staples, who is in Christchurch supporting him with Tauranga athletics coach Ethney Barnaby and club manager Vivian Lintott.<\/p>\n
Asked how his opening race felt, Apaapa said: \u201cI like to run fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staples laughed that perhaps he ran \u201ca little too fast\u201d, having charged to the front early.<\/p>\n
Te Huia Apaapa has earned the name “Rocketman” after running for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n
With several events still ahead, he\u2019s excited for what\u2019s next. Javelin is a new athletics discipline for him.<\/p>\n
Growing up, Apaapa faced real challenges \u2013 from navigating school to being misunderstood by teachers and peers.<\/p>\n
Finding Special Olympics gave him something he\u2019d been missing: a community where he belongs.<\/p>\n
The programme has helped him build confidence, pride and a sense of purpose, qualities now propelling him from event to event.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Content supplied by Special Olympics New Zealand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His foster mother, Dawn Staples, said running quickly became a powerful outlet. \u201cI got him into running because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[115707,1975,6489,85916,3556,111,139,69,5106,6641,38889,1962,213,14625,1227,8690],"class_list":{"0":"post-182330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-apaapa","9":"tag-at","10":"tag-games","11":"tag-huia","12":"tag-national","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-olympics","17":"tag-runner","18":"tag-shines","19":"tag-special","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-summer","22":"tag-tauranga","23":"tag-te"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}