Athletics: Success for Whanganui athletes at the NZ Track and Field Championships

Jonathan Maples retained his 400-metre hurdles title at the New Zealand Track and Field Championships.

Whanganui athletes returned from the Jennian Homes New Zealand Track and Field Championships with smiles and medals after a successful weekend in Wellington.

Jonathan Maples, currently based in Blenheim with the Air Force, successfully defended his New Zealand men’s 400-metre title, running a personal best of 54.05 seconds and, but for a problem at the fifth hurdle, he would certainly have come inside his goal of a sub-54-second lap.

Maples managed a solid block of training while on a month’s leave back in Whanganui for Christmas, but has had to train without a coach and on grass, with considerable improvisation. Maples added personal bests over 100m and 200m at the weekend, narrowly missing the 100m final but finishing a highly creditable seventh in the 200m final. He qualified eighth (21.89s), squeezing out former sprint champion Joseph Millar by one-hundredth of a second. Maples joined Whanganui’s Theo Almazan and Palmerston North athletes Angus Lyver and Aiden Porritt in the 4x100 to take silver for the Manawatū/Whanganui team after a sensational anchor leg from Lyver.

The other senior Whanganui winner was racewalker Lucas Martin in the 10,000m. Martin opted to enter as a senior man in the combined age walk. He took an astounding two minutes off his previous best, completing the 25-lap journey in 46:10.02, and in the process lapped the whole field in an impressive and technically sound effort. Two days earlier, he won the 3000m Under-20 walk in a personal best time of 12:29.44 ahead of Jonah Cropp and Norwegian Magnus Graesli. Cropp had beaten Martin in both New Zealand Schools and at the Capital Classic in early February,

Palmerston North athlete Juliet McKinlay, who as a Whanganui Collegiate student trains at Cooks Gardens, had an outstanding weekend, winning a collector’s set of Under-16 medals (a gold, a silver and two bronze medals), with personal bests in each. The gold came in the triple jump with a 10.44m jump. Earlier in the day, McKinlay took bronze in the 80m hurdles in 12.72s. The previous day, McKinlay won silver in the long jump with her first 5-metre jump (5.05m). She rounded off a successful weekend with a bronze in the 4x100 relay, where she joined Tayler Trow, Emma Verry (Palmerston North) and Hannah Byam (Whanganui).

Daniel Sinclair provided a major upset by winning the Under-20 1500m. He had impressed in the heat with a controlled run from the front to win in 4:00.32. In the final, Sinclair judged his race to perfection, holding back a little from the very fast early lap and going through in a smidgeon over 63s. He eased up to join the leading group to put himself in contention with a lap to go. His final lap of 55s brought him gold by almost a second and, with it, broke the Whanganui Collegiate School record by almost two seconds. The record was set in 2014 by Geordie Beamish who, only a week ago, became New Zealand’s third-fastest all-time miler.

Maggie Jones won silver medals in the 100m and 400m hurdles (14.88s and 1:03.55 respectively). Paige Cromarty finished fourth in the longer hurdles with a personal best. Cromarty and Jones joined the Collette twins (Palmerston North) to win the 4x100 Under-20 and, as a bonus, both ran in the bronze-medal-winning 4x400 Under-20 team. It rounded off a particularly pleasing weekend for Cromarty, who won her way into the 100m and 200m Under-20 finals, finishing fifth and sixth respectively with personal bests in both.

Hannah Byam, who has just turned 14, ran well to take second in the Under-16 2000m steeplechase in 7:49.38. Byam, in only her third steeplechase, demonstrated determination and sound technique that bodes well for the future.

It was good to see success from former Whanganui athletes. Lexi Maples - sister of Jonathan, throwing for Canterbury - took silver, one step higher than last year, with an outstanding personal best of 59.81m in the hammer, tantalisingly close to her 60m goal. Maples repeated her bronze in the shot. Max Attwell followed last week’s decathlon gold with bronze in both the 110m hurdles and pole vault with personal bests.

Former Whanganui 400m runner Emma Osborne, who has battled back from injury with ever-improving times, fractured her tibia at the finish of the 400m, a devastating setback for the tenacious athlete. Our thoughts are with her post-surgery.