Whanganui athletes need their A game in Aussie

Genna Maples, Alec McNab and Tayla Brunger at the Whanganui Airport at the start of their long journey to Adelaide for the Australian All Schools championships.

The national schools championships are now behind the New Zealand Schools team and their travel across the 2.5 hour time difference has been successfully negotiated, leaving athletes ready for action at the Australian All Schools in Adelaide this weekend.

Whanganui has five representatives in the 23-strong team and they joined the squad on Tuesday evening, ready for the early direct Adelaide flight on Wednesday.

None of the athletes were more relieved to make the plane than Grace Godfrey, who had to pull out of both the relays and her specialist 400m event at nationals after sustaining further injury to her hamstring in the qualifying round of the 4x100m.

Godfrey did get some consolation, as having run in the heat she was awarded a silver medal as part of the team that finished second in the final.

Coming back into form, she hopes to be able to take part in Adelaide, even if it is just in the 4x400m relay.

The other Whanganui athletes had an outstanding New Zealand Schools Championships and are ready to make the big step up to the Australian level.

The Australian championships have smaller but higher quality fields.

Genna Maples, still only 14, was one of the stars of the nationals – coming home with two individual gold medals, a silver medal and two relay golds when her Wanganui Collegiate team broke their own New Zealand records.

In looking at the Australian under 18 rankings, Maples starts in the under 16 race and although ranked 20th on time in the Australian rankings, while leading the New Zealand U18 rankings, she is the top 14-year-old and more importantly starts in the 100m as third fastest.

Maples is placed one rank higher among the 200m starters in Adelaide for the under 16's.
Emma Osborne and Tayla Brunger, first and second respectively at nationals, face strong opposition.

Osborne is in great form and Brunger has got better with each of her four races since losing six weeks of training with injury and the bot illness.

Brunger should relish the depth of competition and on rankings could edge into the final.

The higher level of competition will be appreciated by this pair of strong Collegiate runners and like in Hastings they will be part of a strong relay combination.

Because of the nature of competition at the three day meeting where they only have to run a heat and final, both will do an extra event, with Brunger entering the 200m and Osborne the 800m.

Keiran Pere surprised himself and others with his outstanding bronze medal in the Triple Jump.

Pere has had a troubled start to the season after sustaining an injury in basketball.

He battled all term, only jumping over 12.90m once at the first Regional League in Inglewood.

Pere managed a jump of 13.44m in Round 3 of the League, having opened with his first 13m jump of the season which was more than half a metre further than anything else he'd managed so far and was only 14cm shy of his personal best when he won Whanganui Secondary Schools.

He will need to find this form and then some if he is to match the strong Australian jumpers.

As I wrote this on Thursday, the athletes were down at the stadium for light training and a close look at the facilities.

The stadium was closed until mid-afternoon, so the early part of the day was used for some light hearted and non-tiring challenges in the city prior to going to the stadium.

Competition started on Friday and hopefully we have seen the rain and the cooler temperatures, as Adelaide was some degrees cooler than Whanganui.