Coach George McConachy with the hurdles group at the Whanganui Collegiate pre-season camp. Photo / Anna Dai
On Sunday we received the good news that the Athletics New Zealand Mile Championship was confirmed to again be contested as part of the 2022 Pak'nSave Cooks Classic on Sunday, January 30.
The Junior 3000m Championships were also confirmed as part of the programme.
January 27, 2022, only three days before the Cooks Classic, marks a special anniversary in world athletics with the diamond jubilee of Peter Snell's world mile record set at Cooks Gardens in 1962. It is appropriate that this significant anniversary can be celebrated with the Mile Championship at the end of the week of the anniversary.
The significance was not missed by athletes at the Whanganui Collegiate pre-season camp held at the Massey Rugby Institute in Palmerston North. The athletes attending not only participated in event disciplines, but were attached to five groups named after New Zealand Olympics athletics legends.
Part of the traditional camp quiz, which covered New Zealand athletics history and important rules of the sport, was a presentation about their Olympic legends. Elliot Jones, son of our major Cooks Classic sponsor Gareth Jones (Pak'nSave) won the best presentation on New Zealand's first gold medal winner Jack Lovelock, who won the 1500m in Berlin in world-record time back in 1936.
Whanganui Collegiate School team captain Jacky Dai, featured last week, followed Jones with an excellent presentation on Peter Snell, with a factually accurate summary including the strong Whanganui and Cooks Gardens connection.
I was unable to add much to his full account other than the fact that I was privileged to meet Snell and share some classes at Loughborough when he joined us for a year sponsored by Rothmans (an unthinkable sponsor today). This began Snell's academic career, which included a PhD in the United States where he continued as associate professor of exercise physiology at Dallas, Texas, and director of their Human Performance Centre.
Snell also interviewed me for a position at Whanganui Collegiate School which, indirectly, was why Dai was talking at a pre-season camp 49 years later.
The camp saw a record 31 participants prepared to give up the last days of the school holiday to immerse themselves in track and field. We were blessed with sunny conditions and athletes were able to take part in four practical sessions on the track and on the hills around the Massey community track.
The practical was supported by a planning session and an outstanding stretching session conducted by strength and conditioning coach Gilman Barnitt, with Palmerston coaches George McConachy and Jordan Peters joining Barnitt and Tim McKenzie and myself. Masterton coach and former Manawatū/Whanganui representative athlete Mark Harris, who worked with the distance athletes, also delivered an excellent and thought-provoking presentation to the 15-strong distance group. We hope that the energy and enthusiasm demonstrated at the weekend carries into the season. At these times of uncertainty, adaptability was highlighted at camp and athletes were reminded to keep looking at the bigger picture.
We were under alert level 2 when we returned to a maximum of 100 participants at Club Night on Tuesday, operating under the same restrictions as in late February and early March. What was unchanged from opening nights of past years was the usual October wind.
The performances on the opening night bode well for the season ahead. Jack Dai was the first winner of the evening in the 60m and went on to take the Championship Triple Jump. Maggie Jones confirmed she is going into the season in good shape, winning the 60m (8.30) and the 150m (20.17) only .06 outside of her best. Toby Caro won the opening 2000m road race in 6:15.44 which was a 10-second personal best. Oliver Jones in third place took an even bigger slice off his best, stopping the clock at 6:46.54 and bettering his previous best by 16 seconds.
Daniel Sinclair, who had such a good winter over cross-country, stepped down a few distances to run 300m and 600m, and was rewarded with personal bests in both. In the field, Olivia Pickford impressed in the shot with an 11.45m effort to equal her best so early in the season while Ana Pierce in second place had a 9.53 put, setting a best in her season opener. Yasmin Christenhusz won the female triple jump championship.
We all look forward to the season ahead and hope there is less disruption than last season.