Scott Rice: Manu World Championships Event Director discusses the tournament

Kiwis are hitting the water —literally— with the Manu World Championships well under way. 

With the Grand Final set for March, today marks the fifth qualifier, taking place in Whangarei.  

Event Director Scott Rice joined D’Arcy for a chat about the championship and how it’s managed to pick up so much traction in such a short time. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the All Sport Breakfast podcast with Darcy
Wildgrave from News Talk ZEDB, and it's.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
A very good morning now to Scott Rice, the event
director of the MANU World Champs. Back in full swing again,
full dive bomb action. Get a Scott. What have we
got on our plates coming up this weekend?

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Morning? Darcy? Yeah, Look, hey, we've had a great start
with the zed Money World Chance. We had three before Christmas,
we had many last week and today is fun. Today's
time to shine up here, so it's going to be
a good day.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I'm fascinated that this has got so much traction in
such a short amount of time. What's the trick?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Well, I think it's just something very special to Kiwis.
You know, not only do our fantastic partners love to
associate with something truly Kiwi and fun and summer, but
I think New Zealanders love to do a dive bomb,
whether at whatever style they want to do. It's something weird.
We just like to make a big so I think

(01:07):
putting on a competition which celebrates that and also celebrates
some people with a lot of talent in that. I
think that's why it's been a success. And I think
we run good events too, so that's been part of
it too.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, that's the trick. Isn't an expansion more than just
falling into water and being large. There's a lot more
around it that engages the rest of the community. What's
worked for you so far? Do you think this season
that's been well worth trying? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Look, definitely technique based. You know, having a bit of
size does help, but if you're too big, you can't
really bend into the shape you need to be in
to do a really good money and a manu or
as it used to be called out settle in the
MARKETI bomb is where you have to fold yourself into
a V on the way down to the water and
into the water with your sort of rare end in

(01:55):
the lower part of your back first, and then you
kind of the head goes forcefully down under the water
there and creates this big propulsion of water straight up,
and if you don't nail that, you end up with
a kind of a mushroom splash we call it, where
the water goes sort of everywhere but not very high.
So what we're seeing is the people with the best technique,
the people that have practiced over and over again are

(02:17):
the ones that are coming through.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Technologically you've gone huge advances or that as far as
measuring the size, the displacement, everything, so it's not just
a case of a judge and going oh it was
big chair you won.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, for most of our qualifying rounds
we keep it simple. It's about splash height because sometimes
they're judged by a judging panel. But at our super qualifiers,
in our final, we bring in what we call Manu Tech,
which we developed with aut which is a fantastic piece
of technology where we actually video every money Freeze frame
it measure it on screen so we have an accurate height.

(02:54):
But they we've also brought in for the final the
pop or the sound of the money, so we have
underwater hydrophones which measure the sound of the money underwater.
And then we also have a judging panel which judge
for style or creativity of what they do on the
way to the water. So there's a bit more to it.
The further you get in the competition, the more we
like to measure all the different facets of what makes

(03:15):
a good money Scott.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Can you really call it the world champ say, it's
just here in New Zealand. I mean, I know this
is the center of our universe, but come on, it's
not the.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
World, is it. No, We're not just the New Zealand anymore, Darcy.
We've actually hit the Gold Coast. So we're on the
Gold Coast for a qualified early February, in fact, White
Hungy Weekend, which is going to be fun for all
those expats and the Maori pacifica community over there. And
we're actively in a bit of an expansion mode so

(03:43):
next summer we could see even more offshore. So we
started here in the birthplace of the money, but it
is going to expand and I think legitimize that world
champ name and title.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
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