Athletics: Hammer thrower Julia Ratcliffe moves a step closer to Tokyo Olympics with record-breaking performance

Julia Ratcliffe. Photo / Photosport

Dame Valerie Adams produced a season-best throw, Tom Walsh and Nick Willis made strong strides towards Tokyo, but it was an Olympic hopeful hammer thrower from Waikato who stole the headlines at the Porritt Classic athletics meet in Hamilton on Saturday.

Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games champion Julia Ratcliffe produced a stunning series of throws in her hometown event, twice beating her own New Zealand record to come to within touching distance – centimetres in fact – of qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics later this year.

After opening with a huge throw of 71.69 metres, smashing her own 71.39m national record, Ratcliffe capped off her sensational day – where she saw five of her six attempts beat the 70m mark – with a 72.35m to improve her personal best and come within 15 centimetres of automatic Olympic qualification.

The 26-year-old, who also claimed an all-comers and Oceania record, said it was "really special" to produce her record-breaking performance in front of her home crowd, but also saw the achievement as merely a stepping stone in her journey towards the Olympics.

"Honestly it hasn't really sunk in yet. It really hasn't," Ratcliffe told Radio Sport. "Everyone is kind of coming up and congratulating me but at the moment I feel so confident in my plan and my team around me that it feels just like part of the plan. We're just ticking boxes at this stage.

"I'm sure it will hit me a bit later but it's really satisfying I guess. And it's really cool to have a lot of my team out here like my nutritionist, my physio, my strength and conditioning coach, and of course my dad Dave who coaches me in the throwing.

"So it was really special to have so many people out here and to do it at the home ground where I learned to throw when I was a young one."

Ratcliffe also claimed valuable ranking points in her quest to represent New Zealand at the Olympics, which offers her another road towards qualification outside of the 72.5m landmark, and she said she's feeling confident of reaching both goals.

"I'm really confident at this stage, both that I'm going to hit the 72.5 and that I'll be in the positions in the rankings to be selected for the New Zealand team," she said. "So, hopefully, get in both ways but I'm really confident with the point systems as well.

"My next meeting is the Capital Classic down in Wellington in two weeks. So again that's kind of my second home after working down there at the Reserve Bank for a year and a half. Hopefully we'll get some of the work crowd out, they're really excited. So hopefully another semi-home crowd out there."

18.81m and another season best and Olympic Qualifier for this mama.💥🙌🏽 also Kepaleli enjoyed his first meet of the season 🔥 on to the next x pic.twitter.com/7y5WgQsXoD

— Dame Valerie Adams (@ValerieAdams84) February 15, 2020

Meanwhile, Adams continued her comeback to the top of women's shot put with a winning throw of 18.81m, improving on her 18.65m Olympic qualifying throw at the Potts Classic last month.

The 35-year-old double Olympic gold medallist looked to be getting back to the top of her game after the birth of her second child, and will be looking to break the 19m mark at the Sir Graeme Douglas international meet in Auckland next Sunday.

Former world champion Tom Walsh also took a step towards reaching his top form with a winning throw of 21.35m in the men's shot put, while two-time Olympic medallist Nick Willis stormed home in the men's 1500m with a time of 3min 46.71sec as he too hopes to qualify for this year's games.