Athletics: Four seasons in one day for Whanganui Secondary Schools Championships

Juliet McKinlay starts a successful day by winning the combined senior girls'-intermediate boys' 100m hurdles.

Athletes experienced all four seasons at Cooks Gardens during the five-hour Whanganui Secondary Schools Championships on Tuesday.

The event started at 9.30am in mild, sunny conditions with only a light headwind on the home straight but with developing cloud to the west.

With uncanny accuracy, the forecast rain arrived as predicted at noon and became increasingly heavy through the next 90 minutes, driven by strong winds and a drop in temperature.

There was a slight respite before another squally downpour during the final 1500m events.

The sun broke through again as the popular relays got under way at 2.30pm to conclude the championships.

The virtues of an all-weather track were highlighted as the full track programme was completed on time.

The field programme, however, was abandoned at noon as many younger athletes without spikes were slipping on the run-ups.

In the 52-year history of the Whanganui secondary schools event, only once was a whole championships abandoned.

The 1994 meet was abandoned just after the first hurdle events when Whanganui was hit by torrential rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning.

On that occasion, trials for the North Island Schools event were run in conjunction with the athletic club night the following week.

Athletics Whanganui has again agreed to hold the field events missed next Tuesday to help athletes who missed their event gain selection for the Whanganui Secondary Schools team.

It is impossible to get more than a brief snapshot of the action when involved in the infield.

More detailed results and analysis will have to wait until next week’s column.

Jaime Munro (Whanganui High School) was the first champion of the day with an impressive win in the junior 80m hurdles and went on through the day to impress, building on her success last weekend at the Manawatū/Whanganui Children’s Championships.

Munro won the long jump (4.58m, personal best) and took the sprint double with a season’s best in the 200m (28.93s) into a strong headwind and the 100m into an even stronger wind for a personal best 13.65s.

Munro is clearly a young athlete with a bright future.

Juliet McKinlay (Whanganui Collegiate School) leaves for the New Zealand Combined Events Championships on Friday, hoping to add a heptathlon medal to the four won recently in Dunedin.

McKinlay should be encouraged by her three titles and the strong performances that bode well for the weekend (high jump 1.53m, javelin 37.57m and 100m hurdles 15.58s).

McKinlay also anchored her 4x100m team with an outstanding run, overhauling a wide deficit.

Lennox Brotherton (Whanganui High School) took the difficult 3000m-1500m senior boys' double, Tilly Darke (Whanganui Collegiate School) won the 800m and 1500m double in the intermediate girls with her sister Greta Darke taking the senior 800m-400m double in the senior girls.

In the former, she headed her sister in the combined senior/intermediate race.

There was keen competition in the strong intermediate boys sprint races.

New Zealand Under-18 long-jump medal-winner Auguz Thongskul (Whanganui High School) took the 100m title from teammate Hayden Stead by only two one hundredths of a second with Kopere Maihi-Walker (City College) third and Daniel McMillan-Steele (Whanganui High School) fourth.

The headwind of 4.8m per second affected times. Earlier in the afternoon, Maihi-Walker took the 200m from Ethan Wells (Whanganui High School) with McMillan-Steele third while. James McGregor (Whanganui High School) took the 400m from 800m winner Alex Payne (Whanganui High School).

Payne was involved in perhaps the closest race, holding off the challenge of teammate Sean Frieslaar to win the intermediate boys' 800m (2m 10.05s and 2m 10.09s) with personal bests for both athletes.

Frieslaar went on to win the 1500m (4m 45.86s) to head a 15-strong combined senior/intermediate field.

Relays provided a fitting climax to the championships under clearing skies.

The Cullinane team, who had a highly successful meeting with a team that was double in size from last year, should be thrilled with their wins in the junior boys' and girls' relays backed up with a win in the intermediate girls' event.

Paula Conder has made a big impact on Cullinane athletics this year, as she has with junior athletics for Athletics Whanganui.

Whanganui Collegiate won the senior boys' and girls' 4x100m and both Swedish relays with Whanganui High School impressively winning the intermediate boys' race.

Officials and the Sport Whanganui team, led by Quinn Hemmingway, are to be congratulated on their efforts in conducting the championships on time in trying conditions.

I will look at the championships in greater depth next week.