Athletics: Tears of joy turn to disappointment after fiasco

By Terry Maddaford

WANGANUI - A botch-up by athletics officials gifted Counties Manukau's Nicola Kidd a national 400m hurdles record at the international meeting at Cooks Garden on Saturday night - but an hour later they had to take it back.

Kidd sped away from the hurdles field to take an easy win in the second of the three Marley Games. When her time of 57.29s was announced as a national and New Zealand resident record, 23-year-old Kidd could not hold back the tears.

But when it was found the second of the 10 flights of hurdles had not been in place the time and records were scrapped.

Officials blamed the short, five-minute gap after the previous event for the oversight.

Kidd, a touch international who has a 400m hurdles best of 59.44s, said initially she had not realised a hurdle was missing. But when officials, who needed to roll back television footage to confirm the bungle, made their ruling, she said, "Yes, it did click then when I thought back."

Sprint star Chris Donaldson was good enough to overcome a potentially race-losing start to again win over 100m.

After the initial attempt had been recalled when Mathew Coad broke, Donaldson, certain American Jason Young had broken at the second, again awaited the recall.

There was none, and as his opponents sped away Donaldson had to chase. At 60m half the field were ahead, but he powered home to win in 10.38s. He has switched his attention to his first 200m of the season in the third Marley Games at Papakura on Wednesday night.

The one mile feature lived up to its billing, producing the 33rd and 34th sub-four-minute miles at the famous venue.

Winner Hamish Christensen continued his outstanding record here when he again hit the front halfway down the finish straight and held off American Bryan Berryhill, who had beaten Shaun Farrell over 800m at the first meeting in Christchurch.

"It [3m 56.13s] was a good time and the third time I've been under four minutes here," said Christensen. "But, really, it is still not fast enough."

Hopes of a bigger bonus-earning sub-3m 50s were not helped by the failure of officials to call correct lap times. Christensen's time was the tenth fastest run at the Gardens, Berryhill's 3m 56.52s the 11th.

While Christensen's time converted to a reasonable 1500m, and one close to world championship selection, the same could not be said of the junior mile, where Jason Woolhouse won in 4m 16.48s from Vaughan Craddock and Jamie Voss. In the perfect conditions the rising crop of middle-distance runners should have run much quicker. Farrell is still searching for his first post-Commonwealth Games victory after being headed by young Australian Paul Clearly over 800m.

In other highlights, Australians Rachel Dacy (pole vault), Jagan Hames (110m hurdles), Sharon Cripps (100m) and Brad Jamieson (400m) made the most of the competition, and Tina Paulino (Mozambique) comfortably won the women's 1500m from amazing 14-year-old Demelza Murrihy (Taumarunui), who charged home to topple veteran Anne Hare for second.