Fafeita hammers rivals at national champs

Just six weeks after he had first started training seriously for the event 14-year-old Wairarapa College student Alex Fafeita won the junior boys hammer throw at the New Zealand secondary schools track and field championships in Hamilton over the weekend.
The youngest competitor in a discipline open to competitors 16ys and under, Fafeita demolished his four rivals with a throw of 47.20m, a distance which put him all of 15m ahead of the second placegettter.
Fafeita's coach John Quinn, of Carterton, was not surprised at his winning performance for even though he was a virtual rookie he had taken to the hammer throw "like a duck to water."
"He's pretty much a natural at it & right from the time we started he was obviously promising," Quinn said.
"It's not the easiest of the field events to master but Alex picked it up very quickly. And there's huge scope for improvement too, after all he's still at the learning stage."
The hammer throw produced the best result for Fafeita at Hamilton but there was also a fifth placing in the discus with a throw of 43.22m, a ninth in the javelin with a throw of 41.35m and a 10th in the shot put with a put of 11.80m.
In those events too he was up against mainly older opposition which bodes well for the future.
This was not the first occasion, however, that a Fafeita had stood on the victory dias at the national secondary school championships.
Just 12 months previous his sister, Courtnay, had won the junior girls discus and she was third in the same event this time round with a throw of 36.73m.
She also had a fourth in the hammer throw with a distance of 40m and sixth in the shot put with 11.15m.
Coach Quinn said Courtnay Fafeita was in the process of coming out of what he described as a "flat patch" and he predicted some big results for her in both hammer throw and discus over the next few months. "She's been struggling a bit lately but that can happen, it's just a matter of keeping the work up and things are sure to improve," Quinn said.
The third medal winner for Wairarapa College in Hamilton was April Campbell who was the closest of seconds in the junior girls 80m hurdles, so close that her time of 12.46secs was exactly the same as that recorded by the winner.
She also finished 10th in the 100m with a time of 13.42secs.
The senior girls 400m final saw two Wairarapa runners in the final with Ellen Schaef (St Matthew's Collegiate) finishing fourth in 58.37secs and Vicky Paine (Wairarapa College) fifth in 59.24secs.
Paine had earlier won her semi-final in 58.20secs.
Zachary Sinclair (Wairarapa College) was fourth in the open boys 3000m walk in a time of 19min 34.34sec.
OTHER RESULTS FOR WAIRARAPA WERE:
Wairarapa College: Molly Creagh, 6th in junior girls 400m in 62.16secs; William Simpson, 33rd in senior boys 100m in 11.87secs, 9th in 200m in 23.34secs, 21st in long jump with 5.75m; Cameron Sinclair, 43rd in senior boys 100m in 12.12secs, 7th in pole vault with 2.60m, 23rd in javelin with 31.59m.
Rathkeale College: Chris Girling-McLean, 11th in senior boys 400m in 51.79secs.
Makoura College: Kane Dodd, 39th in junior boys 1500m in 5.17.45, 82nd in 4000m road race in 19.02.00; Josh Greig, 10th in senior boys shot put with 12.75, sixth in hammer throw withy 31.42secs, 17th in discus with 34.72m.
Kuranui College: Renee Braggins, 19th in senior girls 1500m in 5.37.90 and 13th in 3000m in 12.20.65.