Athletics: Whanganui's Sophie Williams and Maggie Jones dominant at NZSS Champs

Whanganui athletes return from the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships at Wellington's Newtown Stadium with an impressive medal tally at the weekend.

The three days were marred by gale force winds, and then persistent rain on Sunday forced the cancellation of the Road Race Championships for the first tine in history of the event.

Local athletes from Whanganui Collegiate and Whanganui High School returned with eight gold medals, nine silvers and three bronze.

Alec McNab said the top individual performances came from WHS's Maggie Jones and Collegiate's Sophie Williams.

Jones won a hurdle gold double in the junior girls grade with victory in the 80m and 300m events, and was also a member of the WHS junior relay teams which took silver in both the 4x100m and 4x400m races.

Her team mate Paris Munro claimed bronze in both the same hurdle events and also ran in the relay teams.

WHS had further hurdle success in the junior boys 300m hurdles with an impressive win from Nat Kirk.

Williams took the junior girls sprints double, winning the 100m and 200m golds.

In the 100m, she broke the New Zealand Schools record which had stood since the inaugural NZSS Championships way back in 1973.

Williams ran in the gold medal-winning Collegiate 4x100m team.

She was named as Junior Athlete of the Meet and was selected as part of the New Zealand Schools 'paper' team.

Collegiate's Genna Maples was selected as the Multi Event Athlete of the Meet, adding her name to an impressive list of former winners for the Brent Newdick Trophy.

Maples won the Long Jump gold and was second in both the 100m and 200m, also earning selection to the NZ Schools 'paper' team

The other Whanganui athlete to be selected in the team was Collegiate's Liam Back following his win in the 1500m and his silver in the 800m.

There will be further reporting in Alec McNab's weekly Athletic Insight on Thursday, including details about the other medal winners.