Dashing up the Gardens’ path
The only missing ingredient at the Pak‘nSave Cooks Classic on Sunday was spectators, who would have been treated to a wonderful evening of track and field.
The holding of the annual Classic was a challenge under the red traffic light system, and it was decided at the start of the week that spectators would be excluded from the event. The Classic had been broken into three sessions, with gaps between each to keep within the number restrictions.
The hard work in planning in less than a week was rewarded by an evening in which seven stadium records were broken. And two more athletes were added to the sub fourminute mile roll of honour, which 60 years after Peter Snell’s world record and first at Cooks Gardens, now stands at 71.
The women ran in the penultimate race in which Laura Nagel broke Lucy Oliver’s record, stopping the clock in 4m 35.23s. It was fitting that Whanganui’s New Zealand Olympian Oliver was on track to present the medal to Nagel. Oliver and Nagel are now the first and second women to run the female equivalent of a sub fourminute mile (4m 36s). Former international distance runner Roger Robinson broke his own men’s over80s New Zealand record.
The miles were a fitting conclusion to the meeting in the week that Cooks Gardens was recognised by World Athletics.
The most impressive of the stadium records came in the men’s high jump, when New Zealand Olympic finalist Hamish Kerr (10th in Tokyo) broke his own record, jumping 2.26 metres, 2.27m and 2.28m in successive years at Cooks Gardens. He had an attempt at 2.32m to break his New Zealand record (2.31m), which looks likely to happen in the near future. Keely O ‘Hagan came close to breaking Australian Tokyo medal winner Nicola McDermott’s women’s stadium high jump record of 1.83m with good attempts at 1.84m to win with 1.81m.
The meeting started with the first stadium record when 400m hurdler Portia Bing broke her own record in the mixed race in 55.99s. The mixed race was added to the meet as a nonpermit event, in which Bing was ineligible for world ranking points. Bing fully acknowledged the implication of the mixed race as she searched for competition.
Whanganui athlete Jonathan Maples, returning from injury, won the race with a personal best 55.67s. Cameron Moffitt and Whanganui’s Nat Kirk, both running for New Zealand Secondary Schools, set personal bests in their respective third and fourth places, adding value to the mixed race.
As Bing finished her race, Tori Peeters, who only decided to come to Whanganui just before entries closed, was rewarded with a perfect javelin wind and set a new stadium record of 55.85m, breaking Kirsten Smith’s 32-year-old record.
A little later in the evening, in the second session, New Zealand Olympian Lauren Bruce broke her own hammer stadium record with an excellent 72.05m throw. Bruce raced between the hammer and the new drop-in shot circle with success, winning the latter with a 13.39m put.
In the men’s shot, double Olympic bronze medal winner and former world champion Tom Walsh won with 20.76m effort in his first competition of the season. Local throws coach Richard Drabczynski was correct in a discussion after the meet concerning the top performance of the evening when his pick was Walsh.
On international comparison tables, Walsh’s performances narrowly shaded Kerr’s (1167, 1161) points.
Having two world-class athletes competing at the same time highlighted the quality of the
meeting. It is hoped that Walsh will return to attack the stadium record
next year in front of a large crowd on the special shot circle.
Georgia Hulls battled a 3.4m/second head wind to win the 200m in 23.51s. The stadium record was held by the great Australian Olympic medal winner Raelene Boyle (23.5s) in the days of hand
timing. Both performances will be recorded on the Cooks stadium record list.
Will Anthony smashed the existing under-20s 3000m stadium record by more than 20 seconds with an impressive display of frontrunning to win in 8m 4.23s in a race that immediately preceded the two New Zealand Championship Miles.
Laura Nagel, as mentioned earlier, broke the stadium record (4m
35.23s), breaking away from Anneke Grogan (North Harbour Bays, 4m 37.48s) and Kara Macdermid (Palmerston North, 4m 48.48s).
Julian Oakley (Athletics Tauranga) became the 70th athlete to break four minutes, his first at the iconic track. Matthew Taylor (North Harbour Bays 3m 58.88s) became the 71st for his first at any venue. They could well have been joined by Eric Speakman, who has met the mark twice at Cooks Gardens but unfortunately fell going into the final lap.