Geordie Beamish, centre, broke the 5000-metres indoors record by 15 seconds. Photo / Jared Lautenslager
Geordie Beamish, centre, broke the 5000-metres indoors record by 15 seconds. Photo / Jared Lautenslager
Hawke's Bay-raised Geordie Beamish has set the tone for a possible big year for the return of Kiwi runners to the podiums of international track championships by setting a New Zealand indoor 5000-metres record in the US.
Finishing second to Australian runner and On Athletic Club training partner Ollie Hoarein Boston, 25-year-old Beamish ran the 5km in 13min 12.53sec, not only the fastest for an NZer indoors but the second-fastest outdoors.
Cutting 15 seconds from the previous New Zealand indoors record of 13min 27.61 run by Taranaki athlete Max Baxter last year, Beamish could now have eyes on the outdoor best of Adrian Blincoe's 13 min 10.19sec, run in Belgium in 2008.
Geordie Beamish after winning the Potts Classic Under-20 1500 metres in Hastings in 2015. Photo / NZME
It was Beamish's first race since his dramatic pegging-back of American runner Craig Engels to win an international mile race at the Prefontaine Classic in in Oregon.
Beamish, a Northern Arizona University graduate who retains membership of the athletics club in Whanganui, where he boarded Wanganui Collegiate as a teenager, is now targeting a place at the World indoor track and field championships in Serbia in March.
But not too much further down the track are the World Athletics Championships in Oregon on July 15-24 and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, on July 28-August 8.
Many New Zealand-based hopefuls are expected to be at the Potts Classic in Hastings on January 22 and the New Zealand Track and Field Championships, also in Hastings, on March 4-6.
