Douglass and Gualter selected for New Zealand team heading to World University Games
Wellington’s Olympic club representatives have both been selected in the 19 strong New Zeeland Track & Field contingent to go to the 2025 FISU World University Games in Rhine-Ruhr, Germany from July 16 to 27 July.
Douglass has Stellar season brings reward
Emma Douglass who runs out Wake Forest University of North Carolina will compete in the 800m and now coached by Brandon Hazouri has had a stellar year in 2025 bouncing back with huge resilience from several serious injuries in previous years. Douglaas has had two knee operations in her time since arriving stateside from Wellington. A meniscus surgery first in January 2023 which had her out and off running for 4-6 months and then her second operation saw her meniscus completely removed in her left knee. So Emma has been required to rebuild her career based on massive amounts of determination, patience and extreme resilience to be able to run and be selected to represent NZL at the upcoming World University Games.
Emma last raced in NZL in March 2022 at NZ Championships in Hastings placing 8th in 800m final in a time of 2.12 65. She was coached here in Wellington for the Olympic club firstly by Mike Ritchie when she was focussing on sprints and prior to her move to USA in August 2022 by Evan Cooper for commencement of her middle-distance pathway. Previously in NZL in 2020 and 2021 Emma won medals over 200m and 400m at NZL Championships and was NZ Secondary Schools champion at Tauranga in 2020 over 800m.
Emma’s impressive results in 2025 have seen her explode up the rankings with phenomenal speed and now ranks 9th 400m with 55.76 for 2025 with a PB, 2nd to Alison Andrews-Paul in 800m with 2.03.25 and 3rd ranked in 1500m with 4.13.94 behind leader Kim May.
Emma now ranks 12th on the NZL All-Time Women’s 800m and 20th in 1500m after her stellar season in US college which saw her make the quarter finals over 1500m for the NCAA.
Gualter chasing more success
Toby Gualter now back in NZL for the last 10 months qualifies through his time at North Carolina State University and his recent excellent form in New Zealand over 5,000m and 10,000m. The Alistair Leslie coached athlete back with his home club Olympic has taken National titles on and off the track over the last 6 months with his 10000m title in Inglewood, followed by silver over 5000m in the Dunedin nationals. In recent months he has taken a triple of New Zealand titles grabbing gold medals at NZ Mt Running Championships and 5km Road title in Rotorua, and on the weekend the NZ Half Marathon Championships in a solo run of just over 64mins which sees him in great shape to run 10000m on the track at the World University Games in Germany in a little over 3 weeks time.
