Athletics: Elite numbers dwindling

Shot putter Jacko Gill says a change of technique, thanks to his coach, has been crucial to his win. Photo / Paul Estcourt

The top's thinning out and the bottom's growing - Athletics New Zealand high performance director Kevin Ankrom could be describing the quintessential midlife crisis.

Instead, he's talking about a rapidly approaching day for New Zealand track and field, with the number of elite international athletes dropping away at the same time the sport's junior ranks are swelling.

ANZ recently named a 13-strong team for the New Delhi Commonwealth Games in October, including two Olympic medallists in shot putter Valerie Vili and 1500m runner Nick Willis, but Ankrom said a time was approaching when the sport's top performers would start to dwindle.

And although there was a promising number of under-20 athletes lurking on the horizon, there seemed to be something of a gap between the two groups.

"ANZ is going to go through a cycle here, where the top's thinning and the bottom's growing," he told NZPA.

New Zealand's performance at last week's world junior championships in Canada illustrated that. The 25-strong team was a huge increase on the five sent to Poland two years earlier, and the biggest by far sent to the under-20 event since it began in 1986.

Auckland Jacko Gill, 15, beat competitors up to four years older to win the men's shot put and set an under-16 world record with a winning 20.76m effort.

Ankrom said the challenge now was for ANZ to progress those juniors through to senior ranks, a process he described as "nerve-wracking", with statistical data showing the transition rate from junior to senior was not impressive.

"Hopefully, out of that 25 to the world junior champs, we'll get five that'll continue."

Ankrom said ANZ's "performance culture" was based around the London Olympics.

"Our top is thinning out, and after London - if we can't produce or transition these juniors onto the next stage - it's going to continue to thin out. After 2012, there's going to be some holes we'll need to fill."

There was no doubt the talent was there, he said, and although the transition to senior ranks was difficult, more funding was now available to develop promising youngsters.

"The sport has invested in the top end for so long, and not at the bottom. But now, working with Sparc and getting that funding for development, that's where you're going to see growth," Ankrom said.

ANZ was working on structures and support for elite and developing athletes, and last month's announcement of a government boost to high performance sport funding was vital.

The Government will put in an extra $25 million over the next two years, and an extra $20 million annually after that, as part of the restructure.

The Millennium Institute of Sport and Health on Auckland's North Shore will become the National Training Centre for High Performance Sport with a $40m expansion, including $15m from the Government.

"That's exactly what our sport needs - a one-stop shop for training, where you can do everything you need to get done," Ankrom said.

"We can start making changes in the sport, getting coaches and athletes in those areas and supporting them. It's happening, not at the rate we'd like to see, but it is happening."

- NZPA