Athletics: Middle-distance set to shine

By Terry Maddaford

For the first time in years New Zealand's middle-distance runners are set to challenge the sprinters and field-event athletes for a decent share of the limelight at the national track and field championships.

Leading that charge at the event, which begins at Hamilton's Porritt Stadium tonight, will be one of the youngest of all, 14-year-old Demelza Murrihy.

Murrihy will attempt the tough 800m-1500m double, with particular interest in tomorrow's 800m final, where she will go head-to-head with Toni Hodgkinson in her first outing since the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games.

Sidelined with an Achilles-tendon injury, Hodgkinson has built slowly towards the championships, where she will try to regain the title won (in her absence) last year by Kelly Edge. Edge has not been up to the same form this season.

Julie Seymour (nee Dawson), second last year, is out as she has returned to international netball.

Sunday's 1500m will be a real battle of the old and the new with Murrihy, who has a season's best 4m 23s, taking on Christine Pfitzinger, who is giving away more than 25 years to her young rival.

Anne Hare, the other likely medalist, is 20 years older than Murrihy.

Pfitzinger, who set the New Zealand record of 4m 08.43s in Tokyo in 1991, and Hare have season-best times within a second and a half of Murrihy's best.

The men's middle-distance events have lost some of their glamour with 800m specialist Shaun Farrell opting to run 400m and 1500m favourite Hamish Christensen running 800m.

The pair should win their chosen events, leaving the 1500m wide open. John Henwood, Phil Clode and Phil Sprattley have all run within a second of each other this season and should fight out the finish in Sunday's final.

Two of the stars of the 1998 Commonwealth Games - discus champion Beatrice Faumuina and sprinter Chris Donaldson - will command most attention in today's opening session.

Faumuina, in her first competitive outing since KL, should be untroubled in defending her shot-put crown. Tomorrow she will be a class above the discus field in picking up yet another national title.

But winning distances will be of only secondary concern to Faumuina, who is keen to just get out and compete, hopefully free of any signs of the back injury which hampered her for much of 1998.

Donaldson should win the 100m but the race for silver could be close. Record-holder Gus Nketia is nearing his best and his battle with Matthew Coad, Gene Pateman, Donald MacDonald and Robert Bruce should be a classic.

Donaldson should complete the sprint double on Sunday with Coad likely to be his closest challenger.

Jane Arnott completed the women's sprint treble last season and would go close to repeating that if she opts to attempt the same tough programme this time.

Chantel Brunner will have to top Joanne Henry and Frith Maunder to hold her long-jump crown.

The men's long jump will be a Counties Manukau benefit, with the four principals, Aaron Langdon, Nigel Park, Pateman and Jonathon Moyle, all from the South Auckland club.