Hawke's Bay's massive March of sport will start with track and field stars

Nick Willis, who was just embarking on his career when the national track and field championships were last held in Hastings in 2001, pictured opening the new track seven years later. Photo / File

Athletics New Zealand is expecting one of its biggest national track and field championships in many years as the event is held in Hawke's Bay for the first time in two decades.

Awarded to Hawke's Bay for both 2021 and 2022, as part of an Athletics NZ strategy to expose the championships to more people, the event will be held on March 5-7 at Mitre 10 Park Hawke's Bay and is expected to attract more than 600 athletes. Up to 250 officials and other volunteers will also be involved.

It will be the first time they have been held at the park, which was established after the 2007 closure of Nelson Park, the Hastings all-weather track stadium where Hawke's Bay last hosted the championships in 2001, the first time the championships incorporated national athlete-with-disability events.

The last time the championships were in Hawke's Bay, runner Nick Willis and multiple World and Olympic Games shot put champion Dame Valerie Adams were young emerging athletes, said Athletics NZ chief executive Peter Pfitzingerhe.

It was Willis who cut the ribbon at the formal opening of what was the Hawke's Bay Regional Sports Park track in October 2008, amid a career which now sees him having run four-minute miles each year for 19 years in a row.

Last year he won the national 1500 metres title in Christchurch in a World-class 3min 42.94sec, and a strong field is expected to contest the glamour event in Hastings.

Eric Speakman, from Napier, and Geordie Beamish, from Havelock North, were among four other New Zealand runners to break four minutes in the stand-alone national mile championship at Cook's Gardens last weekend.

Since 2001 the track and field championships have been held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch four times each, and also in Dunedin, Whanganui, Inglewood and Hamilton.

They were held in Hamilton in 2017 and 2018, and Christchurch the last two years.

The park, on the northwestern boundary of Hastings City, home of the Hastings Athletic Club was built with an all-weather track to replace the track lost when Nelson Park, between Karamu and Caroline Rds, closed in 2007 for redevelopment as a big-box shopping centre off Karamu Rd.

The new park has now ticked all the boxes for the national body, twice hosting both of the country's two biggest track and field meetings – the North Island Colgate Games for children and the New Zealand Secondary Schools championships.

The 2010 schools championships included a World Junior shot put record by thrower Jacko Gill, who became a regular at the club's annual Potts Classic.

The awarding of the championships to the Hawke's Bay Gisborne Athletics Centre was announced in December, but Hastings club chairwoman Sharee Jones, whose club runs events at the park on behalf of the centre, along with its weekly Tuesday club nights, said it was about two years ago that Athletics New Zealand asked if the centre was interested and the decision was made a few months later.

Pfitzinger said the event is one of New Zealand's oldest sporting competitions with more than 100 years of history and provides a great opportunity for spectators to witness elite-level athletics.

The nationals are "a true stepping-stone for our future champions" and that it's important they're held in different parts of the country - "so young athletes and spectators have an opportunity to share in the excitement," Pfitzinger said.

Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst believes that with the combination of a class-two track, the grandstand and close parking and other amenities, the park is "arguably" the best athletics venue in the country, as shown in staging elite and national athletic events over the past decade.

Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise described it as a "win-win for the whole of Hawke's Bay," and an "opportunity to show this group how far we have come since the last time Hawke's Bay hosted this event."

Sharee Jones, Local Organising Committee lead, said Hawke's Bay Gisborne Athletics was already well under way with preparations for the event. "We want to provide an amazing experience for every athlete, official, coach and volunteer, and are looking forward to welcoming everyone to the Hawke's Bay in March 2021."

The championships will be part of a particularly big sporting March in Hawke's Bay, also including the Horse of the Year Show in at Showgrounds Hawke's Bay Tomoana in Hastings, starting just two days after the end of the athletics meeting and on March 9-14.

Also on the calendar is a Twenty20 cricket international between the New Zealand Black Caps and Bangladesh on the night of March 23.