Athletic season at mid-point

ANCHORMAN: Harry Symes anchors his Wanganui Collegiate 4x100 team to gold in Auckland at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships. PHOTO/Jo Murray

The New Zealand Secondary Schools Track and Field and Road Race Championships effectively marks the mid- point of the 2016 -2017 season.

The younger athletes, many of whom change age grades at the start of the calendar year, have to refocus and build for the major events at the start of 2017. The Classic series including our own Cooks Classic in January are the first events and culminate in the Athletics New Zealand Championships in late March.

The NZ Schools Championships also brought to an end a decade of success from athletes from the Symes family at secondary schools level.

Back in 2006 Pip Symes made her presence felt in Christchurch as a junior girl with individual medals in Long Jump (2nd) and Triple Jump (3rd) and a gold medal in the Collegiate 4x100 metre relay team. Symes set a school junior and senior record record in that Long Jump (albeit wind assisted). Symes still holds the senior and junior 100 metre records, the 200 metre senior record and 100 metre hurdle record.

At this year's championships Genna Maples did not quite reach Symes' mark in Long Jump (5.48m as opposed to 5.56m ) but her jump was within the legal limit and 13-year-old Maples now has targets and benchmarks to chase as her career develops.

Symes went on to run at World Youths and her successes include a win in the 100 metres at the Pacific Schools Games. Unfortunately, her final NZ Schools Championships was blighted with injury problems shared later by her brothers.

Tom Symes, who represented New Zealand at the Commonwealth Youth Championships in the Isle of Man, also had injury problems in his final term although his was not at the championships but in the build-up.

Tom took silver in the 400 metres in Wellington in 2011 with a time that equalled the Collegiate record and also ran in the winning 4x100 metres and 4x400 metres relay teams, the latter in what was then a NZSS record. Although since broken this remains the second fastest in the all- time rankings.

The youngest in the family, Harry Symes, as reported a fortnight ago took silver in the 200 metres at this year's championships, but had a campaign heavily interrupted with injury. He struggled through the actual meet to hang on for his silver and managed one last effort to anchor the senior 4x100 metre team to a 7th NZ Schools title.

Unfortunately, he was unable to take his place in the 4x400 team. He also has his name in the record books with the 100 metre Collegiate record 10.90 set at North Island Schools.

One highlight of the season to date has been the growth in the children's section with a vibrant Jodie Brunger-organised programme on Monday evenings. This saw a huge increase in registrations, Encouragingly a larger group of 12 athletes will be attending next month's Colgate Games in Hastings and even more importantly the club will be fielding relay combinations in Hastings.

The "Fastest kid on the Block" event at next month's Cooks Classic has also been given a new life by Brunger with qualifying races held in windy conditions last week at a number of locations including Williams Domain, Peat Park, Victoria Park, Springvale and London Park.

Winners will be wearing a coloured shirt and will race in seven age group races at Cooks Gardens on January 17 representing their district - East Side, Durie Hill, Upokongaro and Wanganui East (green); Central/Aramoho (orange); West side, St John Hill, Westmere and Waverley (red); Springvale, Gonville and Tawero (blue); Rangitikei, including Turakina, Marton and Hunterville (yellow) and Ruapehu, Raetihi, Ohakune and Taihape (white).

The races will be held at 8pm at the Cooks Classic and gives the young athletes an opportunity to be part of a major meeting that will end with the Classic Mile at 9pm. The Classic also has the New Zealand under-20 3000 metre championships on the programme and already we have confirmation that the Aspiring Athletes Tour of 30 leading school age athletes will again attend along with a group of 10 Australian athletes, Singaporean hurdlers and a group of Japanese distance runners to add an international flavour to one of New Zealand's leading domestic events.

I wish all readers a happy Christmas. The next article will appear at the start of January.