Manawatu Standard

Manawatu runners heading to nationals

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This weekend Masterton is hosting the Athletics New Zealand road running championsh­ips and it is great to see a number of Manawatu athletes travelling over to Wairarapa to compete.

Once again our top hope would appear to be Tessa Webb, who will contest the women’s under-18 event.

Fresh from a couple of outstandin­g runs at the Australian cross-country championsh­ips, she is sure to be a definite title prospect.

A number of Athletics Manawatuwa­nganui titleholde­rs will be hoping to add national titles to their centre titles.

These include Bella Ives and Nelson Doolan competing in their respective under-13 grades and Liam Wall and Sam Mackinder in the under-15 grade.

Liam will be joined in his race by Andre Le-pine Day, who I believe may be the Manawatu Striders’ first harrier member to contest these championsh­ips.

The centre has a very strong representa­tion in the men’s under18 event, with centre titleholde­r Benjamin Wall being joined by Theo Purdy, Sam Phillips and Thomas Conder.

Christian Conder is another athlete returning from competing Australian and will compete in under-20 event.

David Lovelock, Will O’connor and Liam Woolford are our representa­tives in the open men’s race.

At the centre championsh­ips Juanita Paterson elected to compete in the senior women’s event, rather than competing in the masters grade, and she won the senior title. But this weekend she will compete in the masters race, where she will be joined by Sian Cass and Jo Speary.

Andrew Davenport and Lance Gray will contest the male masters event.

On Sunday week is the final meeting in the winter series.

As I have mentioned previously, competitor­s in this series compete for scholarshi­ps which will be awarded to the three athletes scoring the most points in the series.

These points being are calculated using the WMA age grading calculator tables, with the best result from each meeting counting toward the final placings.

After the third meeting the points scores couldn’t be any closer, with Vanessa Story moving into the lead with 257.96 points, fractional­ly ahead of Lea Meutzel with 257.74 points. Jordan Peters remains in fifth place with 253.35 points.

Other Manawatu athletes in the top 10 are Pavinee Watson, eighth on 235.51 points, Georgia Whiteman, ninth with 231.34 points, and Courtney Walsh 10th with 231.00 points.

The closeness of the competitio­n will make the final meeting’s performanc­es quite interestin­g.

The latest of the Diamond League series produced the results we were hoping we could have achieved at the Rio Olympics.

Both Valerie Adams and Tom Walsh won their respective shot put events and defeating all the athletes that finished ahead of them in Rio.

Both Valerie and Tom are leading the Diamond League points with one event remaining and are in the box seat for a big reward.

After the disappoint­ment of not being able to reproduce his best form at Rio, javelin thrower Stuart Farquhar decided to announce his retirement, bringing down the curtain on a very successful career.

Farquhar was competing in his fourth Olympics and has won the New Zealand javelin titles no fewer than 16 times..

His retirement could open the door for Ben Langton-burnell to take over as New Zealand’s top exponent with the spear.

For the past few seasons Ben has been the training partner of Stuart and has benefited greatly from this associatio­n.

It was interested reading some background on our latest rising star Eliza Mccartney, to discover her manager is Scott Newman, who, as well as being a former chief executive of Athletics New Zealand, has a strong associatio­n with this area.

Scott, along with Nick Cowan, who is Valerie Adams’ manager, both competed in Manawatu and were amongst those responsibl­e for the move when the Palmerston North and Wanganui clubs joined forces and compete successful­ly in the then national league.

This was the start of the close associatio­n that now exists between the two clubs.

Eliza’s success will no doubt create interest, with many youngsters thinking it looks like fun and would like to give it a go.

With pole vaulting requiring special equipment, it is not something all athletic clubs will be able to capitalise on.

We are fortunate that at Manawatu Community Athletics Track we do have the necessary pole vault facilities and the coaching expertise to be able offer this opportunit­y.

 ?? PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES ?? Olympic pole vault bronze medallist Eliza Mccartney.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES Olympic pole vault bronze medallist Eliza Mccartney.
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