Athletics: Bionic man leaps into NZ history

By TERRY MADDAFORD

CHRISTCHURCH - New Zealand's bionic man, Glenn Howard, leaped from the furthest corner of left field into the NZ team for the Sydney Olympics with an outstanding 2.30m high jump at the national track and field championships yesterday.

Jumping at his favourite QEll Stadium venue in front of his old home crowd, Howard, with successive jumps, cleared 2.26m to break his NZ record; 2.28m to equal the Olympic target; and 2.30m to set yet another record and blow away his pre-championship 2.26m prediction.

Howard, who was the outstanding athlete at the adidas New Zealand championships, had not been tipped to be an Olympic prospect. With his long-time back injury held together by titanium screws and bits of wire, Howard shrugged off a 2.18m best in Sydney two weeks ago to leap into history.

"With the way I've been jumping, I wasn't thinking Olympics," said Howard, who is in his third season with Auckland's Bays Cougars Club after moving from Christchurch. "But when I got up this morning and saw the conditions my thoughts changed a little. I was just flying out there. I love this place.

"I don't know what I can do now. Probably give up work and have a real go. Maybe 2.34m to 2.35m, which could get me close to a medal in Sydney."

Howard's stunning late golden jump gave the championships a boost. No other athlete had bettered the Olympic targets, apart from a couple of younger competitors either breaking or rebreaking the world junior championships standards.

In a near-miss, Zion Armstrong confirmed his recent good form with an outstanding 400m hurdles. But for a slight misjudgment over the fourth hurdle, Armstrong could have given the Olympic qualifying time of 49.65s a decent shake.

His 49.95s winning time was the best by a New Zealander, earning him a resident and national record.

"I was both pleased and disappointed," said Armstrong after beating Bays Cougar clubmate Nic O'Brien. "I knew I was in good form and the conditions were perfect. That one mistake might have cost me 0.2s, which would have got me even closer."

Olympic middle-distance prospect Shaun Farrell had a meet to forget. In an all-Canterbury finish, he was run down in the 800m final by in-form Mark Rodgers.

Farrell led the field through 400m in 52s but could not hold out Rodgers, who burst clear in the straight to win in 1m 47.61s, with Farrell 0.06s back. Both were outside the 1m 46.4s Olympic target.

Farrell returned to the track an hour later looking for something better over 400m, but managed only third. The title was taken by Counties Manukau's Bjorn Jansen in a personal best 46.81s.

A former junior champion who had an injury-interrupted season last year, Jansen won comfortably from Callum Taylor with Farrell a close third.

In the dark, long after many of the spectators had left, Beatrice Faumuina collected another discus title on Saturday night with a modest 62.06m effort.

Struggling to find the rhythm she wanted, Faumuina had only her first and fourth attempts over 60m - well short of her 68.52m best - but still won by more than 12m from Adrienne Lynn.

Stuart Farquhar by-passed the under-20 men's javelin to focus on the senior event. That decision was well justified when Farquhar, who had won the under-18 title on the first day, threw 72.22m.

Although a little over a metre behind Fijian representative James Goulding, Farquhar picked up the title. It was later claimed that he is the youngest male to win a New Zealand senior title.

In other stand-out efforts, Chris Donaldson ran the last of his 14 races in three weeks to complete the 100m-200m sprint double and Toni Hodgkinson ran well to win the women's 800m-1500m double, her 2m 00.95s 800m confirming that she is coming into her best form.

She completed a hat-trick by joining her Bays Cougars team-mates to win the 4x400m relay.

Craig Barrett walked away with the 3km and 20km titles without being pushed; Jane Arnott, concentrating on just the 400m, ran 52.44s and within 0.44s of the Olympic target; and Andrea McBride completed a treble in winning the under-18, under-20 and open women's javelin titles.

Faumuina, Barrett, Donaldson and Hodgkinson were the only athletes to have beaten Olympic targets before the nationals.