Burne claims road champs
ALAN ADAMSON
Two former Palmerston North athletes were on the up on the victory dais at the New Zealand road championships in Christchurch on Saturday. Olivia Burne won the senior women’s title while Melissa Black was a member of the Wellington centre team that took out the senior women’s teams title.
David Lovelock’s 22nd place in the senior men’s event was the best of the local runners.
He finished just ahead of Will O’connor who was 24th.
Liam Woolford was fourth in the under23 grade of the world icosathlon championships in Turnhout, Belgium, last weekend.
An icosathlon is a double decathlon - 20 events contested over two days.
The list is quite mind-boggling and just getting to the finishing line of the final event is an outstanding achievement.
It starts with the 100m which Liam completed in 13.94s, followed by the long jump (4.59m), 200m hurdles (32.01s), shot put (9.67m), 5000m (18m03.40s), 800m (2m20.65s), high jump (1.40m), 400m (64.73s), hammer throw (17.64m) and the 3km steeples (11m10.67s).
The second day includes the 110m hurdles (24.58s), discus (28.49m), pole vault (1.60m), 3000m (10m15.10s), 400m hurdles (75.93s), javelin (34.57m), 1500m (5m06.28s), triple jump (7.42m) and the 10,000m (42m 47.78s).
These results gave Liam a score of 7206 points.
Liam was the second Palmerston North athlete to competed in the world championships with Callum Mcconachy having been to two previous championships with his 2010 performance of 10304 points the New Zealand record for the event.
Continuing on with what has turned me off next year’s Commonwealth Games is the system being used for ticketing.
I know in Australia you had to make application for tickets that were then balloted. I saw many comments on social media of some people missing out completely on their choices.
It appears that those options were only available to Australians with overseas people being directed to their country’s authorised reselling agents.
In New Zealand it is New Zealand Olympic Travel.
When I first checked they appeared to only be offering only a package which included accommodation, which I wasn’t interested in.
A recent issue of Athletics New Zealand’s Athletes in Action newsletter provided a link to the website of New Zealand Olympic Travel where tickets could be purchased. Out of interest I checked this out. I’m certain anyone heading to the site was in for a shock as it included.
‘‘All ticket prices are listed in NZD, converted from AUD to NZD with the permitted ATR handling fee of 25%, up to a maximum of AUD50,’’ it said on the site. What a rip-off. New Zealanders are being expected to pay an extra 25% per ticket as a handling charge.
Further congratulations are in order for Tessa Webb who has been included in the New Zealand team to compete in the world secondary schools cross-country championships being held in Paris in April next year.
This Sunday will see the final round of the winter series take place at the Manawatu Community Athletic Track.
Palmerston North club athletes are well placed to take out the majority of the series prize pool with athletes who have competed in all the three previous rounds having a decided advantage in retaining their positions on the leaderboard.
Zac Topping has a comfortable 12-point advantage over Jordan Peters, who is nine points clear of Courtney Trow.
There could be some interesting battles towards the bottom of the board with the final three positions being held by athletes who have not contested all of the three previous meetings and will need to perform well to retain their chance of getting a share of the prize pool.
Winter Series meet programme
1pm: 60m, shot put, high jump, triple jump 1.20pm: 1000m, 3000m, 5000m 1.45pm: Discus/hammer, long jump 1.50pm: 600m 2.10pm: 200m or 2x100m
What’s On: September 9: Marton-wanganui Relay September 10: Winter Track and Field Series, Palmerston North
September 13: Athletics Manawatuwanganui annual meeting
September 19: Palmerston North Athletic annual meeting