Officials needed to cope with surge in numbers
OTAGO’S recordbreaking athletes would no doubt be more thankful than most for a few extra helping hands on a Saturday.
A shortage of officials has left Athletics Otago stretched thin at its weekly meetings at the Caledonian Ground.
Meetings are to be held at noon on the next two Saturdays to try to attract more people to help run the events.
While official numbers have not dropped, athlete numbers have grown this summer, with 115 competitors on the biggest day.
That creates a ‘‘great problem’’, one it needs to solve.
Not only does it make things difficult for the current officials, it is having an impact on some top performances.
‘‘We’ve had to decline, I think it’s been three records so far this summer, because we didn’t have enough officials,’’ Athletics Otago board chairwoman Megan Gibbons said.
‘‘So that makes it a bit hard on the athletes too, when they’re performing and then not getting the recognition for it.’’
While the board was looking for more people in all areas, the biggest area of need was someone to operate the photo finish.
At present, Paul Tyson was the only official capable of doing that, meaning if he was away, there was noone to cover for him.
Gibbons said that was an area not everyone could pick up easily, but she hoped someone who was interested in technology might put their hand up.
She said there were various reasons why athletics was a good sport to get involved with at an officiating level.
‘‘I think it’s such an easy sport around measurement and the rules are quite simple.
‘‘So you get to actually help the athlete quite a lot.
‘‘There is a good group of officials and you’ll get really good training in Dunedin, and I think it allows them to see what athletes are capable of as well.’’
She said the season had got off to a good start with some top performances and good weather.
There was a strong group of athletes preparing for the New Zealand secondary schools national championships. Alongside that, there was a good group of seniors, which had not been the case for the past few years.
The meetings were also attracting athletes from other centres, with Southland having its local meetings on a Friday night and Canterbury still not having a track.
Gibbons also thought the new requirement to enter online and pay the $10 entry fee by the Thursday before competition had helped.
That meant athletes committed to competing, rather than getting to Saturday morning and deciding they did not want to.