Waikato BOP Champs: Lisa Adams, Julia Ratcliffe, Zoe Hobbs off to Tauranga

Sprinter Brooke Somerfield will be one to watch at this weekend's Waikato Bay of Plenty Championships. Photo / Andrew Warner

Brooke Somerfield, Abby Goldie, Lisa Adams and Marguerite Johansson.

Those four names are among the Bay of Plenty's top female contenders of this weekend's Waikato Bay of Plenty Championships.

The championships at the Tauranga Domain tomorrow and Sunday, will feature 144 athletes from clubs around the Bay of Plenty and Waikato competing in age group and open events over the two days.

Athletics Waikato Bay of Plenty committee member Malcolm Taylor, who is also president of the Tauranga Ramblers, says this weekend's event had attracted a good field, particularly in the female events, with some of the bigger names in the sport entered.

"There should be good racing," Taylor says.

"We're pretty happy, looking forward to it."

They include Rotorua's Para World Champion shot put athlete Lisa Adams, Commonwealth Women's Hammer Gold medallist Julia Ratcliffe and New Zealand's top Women sprinter Zoe Hobbs, who will have strong competition from Georgia Hulls, 23-year-old Tauranga Australian Youth Olympics Festival representative Abby Goldie and the Kerry Hill-coached Tauranga 22-year-old, Brooke Somerfield.

Lisa Adams at the Sir Graeme Douglas International Track Challenge. Photo / www.photosport.nz

Taylor expects to see plenty of quality racing and events this weekend, with plenty of notable athletes to keep an eye out for during the two-day event. Other athletes worth watching, Taylor says, are Cambridge's Hinewai Knowles, who is New Zealand Secondary Schools' 100m Senior Girls Champion, and Marguerite Johansson - a Bethlehem College student who broke the Junior Girls' Triple Jump record at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Track and Field Championships in Wellington last year, with a jump of 11.84m. She's also an impressive runner, he says.

There will also be about 30 of Tauranga's young Colgate Games stars competing, including Lily Aitken-Keogh, Olivia Hala, Andre Gundersen and Renee Carey, who will be using this weekend's event to help progress their performances ahead of the North Island Secondary Schools champs at Hamilton's Porritt Stadium in April.

Taylor says the Waikato Bay of Plenty Championships provide athletes with a good opportunity to progress their talents and help attain higher honours in their careers.