Team Wairarapa finished third, just six points from the winners, in the junior section at the New Zealand clubs track and field championship finals at Cooks Gardens, Wanganui last weekend. In a superb effort considering they represented one of the smaller centres in the country, Team Wairarapa secured 224 points,beaten only by Team Central on 230pts and Team Pakuranga on 228pts A highlight for Wairarapa was their success in both of the medley relays.The boys line-up of William Simpson, Michael Wilson, Cameron Sinclair and Chris Girling McLean won by about 20m while the girls combination of Ellen Schaef, Vicky Paine, Corrina Paine and Sam Cates had all of 40m to spare. Other features were the easy win of Vicky Paine in the girls 800m after she came into the home straight trailing the leader by 20m, the 2mins 4secs clocked by 400m specialist Chris Girling ?McLean in the boys 800m which was a personal best by 12secs and saw him claim third place and Zach Sinclair's victory in the 3km walk in a time which beat his previous best by 45secs. Deserving of special mention too were the performances of Zach Bird and Courtney Fafieta who picked up points for their team by contesting the pole vault despite having no knowledge whatsoever of that intricacies of the event. Bird cleared 2.40m and Fafieta 1.80m All told Wairarapa had 11 first placings, a huge result against high quality opposition.
