Tayla Brunger preparing for an event during the Australian Schools Championships.
Alec McNab provides a diary of events for the Whanganui competitors in the New Zealand team competing at the Australian Schools Championships in Adelaide.
Friday, December 8.
The waiting is over and the New Zealand athletes are in action here in Adelaide.
Tours take on a different atmosphere when competition is
underway, with a tension and sense of anticipation in the air.
It is especially hard for athletes in a team event, who are first into action as they step into the unknown.
This responsibility on this tour fell on Whanganui 400m athletes Emma Osborne and Tayla Brunger and they responded magnificently.
Qualifying was hard as only the first two runners in each of three heats were guaranteed a berth in the final and as mentioned in the preview, both girls were ranked on the edge of making the Top 8.
NZ Schools junior champion Emma Osborne was in Heat 2 and did the business, finishing strongly in second for an automatic spot, recording 57.93s with yet another sub-58 second run from this promising athlete to qualify for Saturday's final, ranked sixth.
Brunger ran in Heat 3 and after her rehabilitation following injury made a new season's best, having now recorded five runs since her comeback in mid-November in Masterton with each faster than the one before.
Brunger made her second fastest ever time to finish second and ranked fifth of the finalists in 57.59s.
Grace Godfrey's hamstring injury fully caught up with her – finishing in pain near the tail of the field.
Never have I seen an athlete work harder to get back in action.
She again damaged the hamstring last week at the NZ Schools in the 4x100m heat, and although hopeful about coming right in Australia it was not to be. In successive weeks she has seen a likely New Zealand Schools title slip from her and based on her California performances she would have made the Adelaide final.
To add salt to the wound she watched the young Osborne take her school record in Hastings.
Godfrey is now helping with the relay teams on the tour – a strong 4x100m group with three of the Wanganui Collegiate NZSS junior record-setting team joining with Faith Araba from Hawera.
The day ended with Sam Montgomerie (Waikato – St Peters School) finishing just outside of the medals in the 2000m Steeplechase.
Whanganui athletes in action tomorrow are the relay runners mentioned above, as Brunger and Osborne run in the 400m final and Genna Maples starts her 100 metre campaign.
Saturday, December 9.
In only 25 days since returning from a long spell out from injury and Tayla Brunger produced her sixth successive season's best in finishing fifth in the Australian Under 16 girls 400m final in 57.17s.
It has been a difficult year for Brunger, missing all of Term 1 with injury and then all of October and half of November with a different achilles injury – sustained on a tramp – and although her Adelaide time was still a tenth of a second down on her best (set when winning an NZ Schools title last December) it is clear Brunger has the speed and it will not be long until her strength and endurance returns.
Brunger drew Lane 8, with only her New Zealand and Whanganui team mate Emma Osborne outside of her on the Adelaide nine lane track.
Osborne, who six days earlier had won the New Zealand Schools junior title, perhaps set off a little slowly – leaving too much to do into a light head wind on the home straight.
Osborne closed the gap with an impressive sprint on the home straight to finish sixth in 57.63s for yet another consistent sub-57 second performance.
Keiran Pere had an outstanding Triple Jump competition after struggling through much of the term with a basketball ankle injury
At NZ Schools last weekend he sprung a surprise, taking bronze with a huge season best of 13.44m.
He proved in Adelaide this was no flash in the pan, producing a 13.42m effort to take eighth and have his best ever series of jumps to back this up.
Pere was delighted with his efforts after such a difficult build up.
Genna Maples quickly realised the depth of 100m competition on this side of the Tasman.
Maples had a slow start in a tough heat and finished fourth.
With only two guaranteed final berths her 12.46s time left Maples 0.04 seconds shy of a place in the final in ninth position.
Maples is still only 14-years-old competing in an Under 16 field, and she watched the final where based on her recent performances she would have taken bronze.
Later in the day, Maples showed much of her normal spark in the 4x100m where three of the Wanganui Collegiate team were joined by Hawera's Faith Araba to finish fourth with a faster time than Collegiate produced when they set a NZ Schools record a week ago in Hastings.
Maples jumps in the Long jump tomorrow and starts in the 200m, where she is determined to put today's performance behind her.
She is joined by Brunger in the 200m, while Osborne runs her first 800m of the season.
Later, all three with young Araba run in the Swedish Medley relay where they hope to emulate the New Zealand Under 18 boys team that took silver yesterday.