McCartney makes winning return to competition
WELLINGTON: New Zealand pole vaulter Eliza McCartney has eased her way back into form two weeks before the athletics world championships with a 4.61m winning effort in Belgium.
McCartney, who won a shock bronze at the Rio Olympics last year, had been struggling with ongoing Achilles tendon problems.
She bypassed the Diamond League meeting in London early this month, and another event in Germany, to work on rehabilitation.
At the Nacht van de Atletiek meeting in HeusenZolder, McCartney put together a solid series of vaults, but she took two attempts to clear both 4.21m and 4.31m.
McCartney then sailed over 4.41m and 4.51m on her first attempts, resting at 4.56m before nailing 4.61m first up then ending with three misses at 4.71m.
Seventeenyearold compatriot Olivia McTaggart, who set a personal best 4.40m in January this year, finished seventh in the same competition, clearing 4.31m.
McCartney (20) cleared a national record 4.82m in Auckland in February and had opened her European campaign with an encouraging 4.75m best in Rome in early June.
However, she failed to register a height at a subsequent meet in Oslo and managed just 4.20m in Stockholm.
McCartney is part of a 10strong New Zealand team which will contest the world athletics championships, beginning in London on August 5.
Nick Willis ran his season’s best time at a lightningquick 1500m race in Monaco to qualify for the world championships.
He clocked 3min 34.74sec in a 16man race at the Diamond League meet to place 10th.
The time was more than 2sec quicker than his previous best this year, recorded in Padova, Italy last week. The double Olympic medallist has been added to the New Zealand team already named to contest next month’s world championships in London.
Willis, who has gradually worked his way back to form after taking a postRio break, got a firsthand look at many of his likely rivals in London.
Kenyan Elijah Manangoi powered home in a 2017 world leading time of 3min 28sec, which was 2sec short of the 1998 world record, held by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj.
Timothy Cheruiyot was second and Ronald Kwemoi third in a Kenyan trifecta. — NZN