Helen Townsend
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Helen Townsend (born 16 August 1969[1]) is a New Zealand secondary school teacher and Olympic softball player from Christchurch.
Townsend was born in Christchurch and started playing softball at age 14.[2] She represented New Zealand in softball in the New Zealand Under 19 team in her final year at Burnside High School, which she attended from 1983 to 1987.[3] For ten years from 1990, she played in the Senior Women's team and represented New Zealand at the senior world championships in 1994 and 1998.[2] The team missed qualifying for the 1996 Olympics, but made it to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where it came fifth.[2] She played in Italy for a year and then in Canada for a year,[3] and retired from playing softball after the 2000 Olympics.[2]
Townsend graduated from the University of Otago with a Bachelor's in Physical Education and, after playing softball in Canada, was appointed a full-time physical education teacher at her old school, Burnside High.[3] After the Olympics, she was a video analyst for the New Zealand men's national softball team.[2] and while in that role, the men defended their world championship title.[4][5] She remained a video analyst for the men's team until 2009, when she was inducted into the Softball New Zealand Hall of Fame, along with three others.[6][7]
