Palm North hold advantage

Masterton will host the final round of the Central region teams competition, with Palmerston North going into the round holding a narrow lead.

With this meeting strategically placed two weeks out from the New Zealand secondary school championships, it is an ideal chance for athletes to fine tune their preparations.

I was surprised more schools are not taking the opportunity to give their relay teams a practice run.

At Whanganui we saw a very slick team from one of the Hawke’s Bay girls schools going through their paces and both Palmerston North Boys’ High School and Wanganui Collegiate School have had teams out, but nothing from the Wellington schools.

■ This week I have decided to have a look at the results from our younger club members.

One of the surprises for me is the fluctuations in numbers between ages and sexes.

We have examples where some ages it is necessary to run two heats of a race, whereas the opposite sex or the next age up had very few entries.

In the seven-year-old girls races we saw victories to Eden Matthews and Chloe Groube, with Eden also winning the discus.

In the seven year old boys, Beau

Kennedy took the honours in the three track races, with Aidan Mace proving best in the discus.

Khloe Hutton was the girls eight winner in the three track races, with Brooke Smyth winning the discus.

The boys eight races were shared between Cullen Hewitt, Declan Hansen and Oliver Lean, with Declan adding the discus to his victories.

Stella Groube won three of the girls nine races, with Tayler Trow and Cadee Hampsen also winning in the other heats.

Tayler also won the discus. Vala Lawton was top in the girls ten races, with Anabel Romerogemmell best in the shot put.

Hunter Kennedy was another to complete the treble in the boys 10 track races, adding the shot put as well.

There were good performances from some of our older athletes throwing the javelin, with former national age group titleholder Aidan Smith getting the spear out to 56.80m, with Guy Pedersen recording a best throw of 42.30m.

Sam Mackinder was the best female with a best of 30.37m andh Samora Southcombe’s best 24.42m.

It is good to see some athletes attempting the pole vault, with Georgia Whiteman’s clearance of 2.00m listing her on the club’s alltime-ranking top 10.

■ Ashhurst will be the focus for athletes on Sunday with both the Ashhurst Athletic and Harrier Club and Manawatu Striders having events centred in the village.

Children will be flocking to Lincoln Park to take part in the athletic club’s ribbon day, while the Ashhurst Domain is the starting point for the Striders Ashhurst to Esplanade event.

■ Palmerston North Parkrun reports another good turnout, with154 participants in last Saturday’s event.

It was good to see runners using this event as a training run on a weekend free from competition.

It was not surprising new coursebest times were set with Benjamin Wall celebrating his birthday by completing the 5km run in 16m22s and Tessa Webb the first women home in a record 18m38s.

■ With the Commonwealth Games now being less than six months away, I was interested to see England have announced their squad of 75 athletes to compete in track and field events. Quite a contrast from New Zealand’s quota, which has been announced as being 19 athletes

■ Congratulations to Mal Thomas, Rob Dabb and Vanessa Story on being named as finalists at the Grassroots Roots Awards.

It is always good to see sporting volunteers being recognised.