Big stars light up national event
Same meet, same track. Kiwi sprinting star Zoe Hobbs will be hoping lightning does strike twice when she lines up at the national athletics championships in Wellington today looking to light the fuse on her outdoor season.
Hobbs is one of seven athletes who competed at the world indoor championships in Glasgow (March 1-3) who has hurried back to line up at the national event.
Only US-based newly crowned global 1500m champion Geordie Beamish and fellow middle-distance standout Maia Ramsden, back in her final year at Harvard University, are excused duty, while high jump gold medallist Hamish Kerr is a late withdrawal.
Hobbs, who was an agonising fourth in the world indoors 60m final, and Glasgow medallists Eliza McCartney (pole vault) and Tom Walsh (shot put) are the marquee names on show in the capital, with Hobbs the only one of that group competing today when the senior schedule bounds into action. (Kerr had dispensation to give his event the swerve after his golden heroics in Scotland).
It was at the corresponding meeting, and the same Newtown track, a year ago that Hobbs blasted through to the top tier of women’s sprinting when she set a national record (11.07sec) in the heats, and then followed it up with a dazzling, but wind-assisted, 10.89 in the final.
It was, at that stage, the first time she had dipped under the 11-second barrier, and remains the fastest she has run in a race.
Hobbs did follow it up with a legal, and Oceania record, 10.97 at the Sydney Track Classic just a few weeks later and then improved that mark with 10.96 (right on the 2.0 allowable wind limit) in Switzerland last July.
The James Mortimer-trained athlete should have things her own way in what will be a straight 100m final at 5.20pm as she chases an eighth successive national crown.
World No 2 pole vaulter McCartney, who claimed a confidence-boosting silver at the indoors, is keen to keep her momentum going after achieving her first international podium since 2018 in Glasgow.
“I’m super excited to be back competing on home turf,” said the vaulter with a season’s best of 4.84m. “I’ve got a lot of motivation to jump while things are going really well.”
McCartney’s chief competition, in pursuit of a fifth national title tomorrow, will be fellow national squad member and 2022 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Imogen Ayris.
Walsh, who threw a not-quite season’s best of 22.07 metres for silver in Glasgow, is what you might call highly motivated in pursuit of what would be a record-equalling 14th national title tomorrow.
For the supreme competitor from Christchurch (by way of Timaru) last year’s rare defeat to rival Jacko Gill on the national stage still hurts, and he’s using it to fuel him as he bids to match the record haul of New Zealand throwing icon Les Mills.
“I’m looking forward to dropping some bombs. As one of the marquee athletes, it is really important to compete in front of New Zealand fans.”
Among the leading lights competing today are Maddi Wesche (shot put), fourth in Glasgow with a personal best of 19.62m, as she chases a fifth national crown; two-lapper James Preston, who will start hot favourite to defend his national title after setting a New Zealand indoor 800m record in Scotland; and now South Africa-based sprinter Tiaan Whelpton, who returns seeking back-to-back titles after also lining up at the world indoors.
Other big names lining up include world championships semifinalist Sam Tanner (1500m), Diamond League podium finisher Tori Peeters (javelin), world championships finalist Connor Bell (discus), and para standouts Lisa Adams (shot put), Anna Grimaldi (long jump), Holly Robinson (javelin) and Danielle Aitchison (100/200).