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Gym honours drowning victimDate: 21.02.2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team New Zealand
A city gym will halt all exercise and shut down its machines at 11am tomorrow as a minute's silence is observed for Maru Katene.
The 30-year-old Palmerston North man died while swimming with his daughter at Foxton Beach on Sunday afternoon.
A personal trainer at the CityFitness gym in Pitt Street, Mr Katene's workmates have described him as a private, family man.
He was also a keen sportsman with a passion for rugby and bodybuilding.
Those workmates unable to attend his funeral service in Taranaki tomorrow will pay their respects when the service starts.
"We will turn everything off at 11am and ask for one minute's silence to remember him. He was well liked around here," workmate Fiona Hulena-Green said yesterday afternoon.
Mr Katene went for a swim with his eight-year-old daughter, Te Autiti, at Foxton Beach.
He was a strong swimmer, the conditions were perfect and they were in chest-deep water.
But Mr Katene, for some as-yet unknown reason, got into trouble.
His daughter swam to shore and alerted Mr Katene's partner, Kyla.
A search was launched and Mr Katene's body was found in the ocean an hour later.
Police are waiting for the results of an autopsy to see if he suffered from some sort of medical condition.
Family and friends have gathered for his tangi at Meremere's Ohangai Marae in Taranaki. His brother, Theo Jones, said Mr Katene was "very strong physically, and headstrong".
"He was very health conscious.
"This is the last person you would expect this to happen to."
Workmates said he could bench- press about 130kg and had planned to compete in the regional bodybuilding championships at the end of this year.
Friend Kevin Shing said Mr Katene had been training hard for an upcoming body building competition and was "looking a picture" at the time of his death.
A former student at Hata Paora College, near Feilding, Mr Katene played rugby for Feilding Old Boys for about five years as an openside flanker before returning to bodybuilding in the past year. |
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