Athletes head north in numbers

HITTING THE STREETS: Collegiate runners Caitlyn Alabaster, Jane Lennox and Emma Abraham are joined by Ethiopian visitor Haimanot Zamburlini (WHS) head out for a NZ Championship training run.

While the sporting world will be looking to the forthcoming Olympics starting on Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, or closer to home to the Super Rugby Final in Wellington, over 500 New Zealand athletes will be gathering at the Auckland Domain for the New Zealand Cross Country Championships on Sunday.

It is pleasing to see the Manawatu/Wanganui Centre fielding more runners and importantly have teams competing in both male and female under 18 grades with Whanganui runners contributing significantly to both teams. I have said many times in this column the importance of team competition in cross country.

Sadly many small centres have failed to put a team together and have not realised that being part of a team encourages larger fields.

It is interesting to note that the combined number of runners in the Under 20 and Under 18 fields in both genders is only 50 percent of the size of just the senior boys field at the New Zealand Secondary Schools in Rotorua in June where so many ran because of the team nature of the competition. The quality at the top of each field at the weekend is there but sadly not a larger supporting cast of runners.

The Conder family is well represented and are almost a team of their own. Robert and Paula compete in the 40-44 grade with son Christian in the Under 20 Grade and Thomas starting in the Under 18 grade.

Christian is on the road to recovery having missed the North Island Cross Country in Taupo at the start of July with a recurrence of the injury that impaired his performance in Budapest at the ISF World Schools Cross Country in April. At New Zealand Schools he finished 5th in a strong field and Saturday's race is important as part of his recovery in preparation for the Australian Cross Country in Canberra later this month where he will be part of the NZ Schools Team.

Thomas Conder will be joined by fellow Whanganui athletes Liam Jones and Oliver O'Leary and combining with two athletes from Manawatu to ensure that the Centre fields a four to score team in the grade for the first time in many years.

They will start just half an hour after the Under 18 women where MWA has a realistic chance of winning a team medal.

The Under 18 women's team is headed by Tessa Webb of Feilding. Webb has struck a rich vein of form which included winning the New Zealand Secondary Schools Senior Cross Country in Rotorua in June. Webb may find it hard to defeat the junior NZ Schools Champion Hannah O'Connor from Taranaki who broke the North Island course record in defeating Webb in Taupo at the start of July.

Webb, however, has every chance of gaining an individual medal and giving a sound foundation on which to build a team medal. Webb's team mates are all from Whanganui and were part of strong Collegiate teams at NZSS in June.

Jane Lennox finished 15th in Rotorua in the senior girls and was less than five seconds from retaining her place in the New Zealand Schools team. Lennox will be joined by the consistent in-form Caitlyn Alabaster who finished 8th in the NZ Schools under 16 event and Emma Abraham who was part of the same gold medal winning 6 to score junior Collegiate team in Rotorua.

Well-known local sports massage therapist Paul Duxfield starts in the Masters 55-59 and Haimanot Zamburlini (pictured) runs as an overseas guest in the under 20 grade and will travel and stay with the MWA Team.

Zamburlini an Ethiopian resident in Italy is on a six month visit to New Zealand and attends Wanganui High School. She has been a wonderful addition to the training group as she has experience and closely matches Lennox and Alabaster in ability.

It is wonderful she has arrived in time to experience a New Zealand Cross Country Championship and hopefully a New Zealand Schools Track and Field Championships, also in Auckland, in December.