Whanganui High School Year 9 athlete Jaime Munro made a major impact at the Whanganui Secondary Schools Championships.
All successful sports teams worry about succession and the season ahead.
This is especially the case at schools as every year a group of senior students leave school at the end of their schooling, leaving gaps to be filled.
Whanganui High School has enjoyed track and field success over recent years but, as with all schools, hopes that promising junior athletes continue to thrive in the school and club programmes.
Last year, Damian Hodgson was the school’s most successful athlete, winning the New Zealand Secondary Schools 300m hurdles title. He was a finalist in the 200m final and a medal winner in the 4 x 100m relay.
In March, he won the NZ under-20 400m hurdle title and ran in the senior men’s bronze medal-winning 4 x 400m team.
Hodgson intends to follow in the footsteps of former teammates Flynn Johnston and Maggie Jones to pursue his athletics career in the United States, although current visa delays have stalled his departure.
The only NZ individual medal winner returning to Whanganui High School is 16-year-old Auguz Thongskul.
Thongskul was a surprising bronze medal winner in the NZ Schools junior long jump at his first championships in 2023. He finished a place lower a year later in Timaru last December.
He was struggling to reach his best form with major run-up problems but bounced back in early March, securing a bronze medal at the Athletics NZ under-18 long jump with a wind-assisted best of 6.47m. The jump was 40cm beyond his previous best.
The championships heralded an outstanding final month of the 2024-2025 season for Thongskul.
He impressed at the Whanganui Secondary Schools Championships and ended his season at the North Island Secondary Schools Championships in Hamilton, where he impressively won the intermediate long jump. He repeated his 6.47m jump, this time without the assistance of a tail wind, and took his first individual sprint medal with a bronze in the 100m with a massive personal best of 11.14s. This eclipsed his previous best of 11.36s set in the qualifying round.
Thongskul also ran in the bronze medal Whanganui intermediate 4 x 100m team with his High School teammates Ethan Wells, Reiley Thomas and Charlie McBride. This improved sprinting will help his jumping and, if he can add consistency on the run-up, he looks set for further success.
Year 9 Jaime Munro made a major impact at the rain-affected Whanganui Secondary Schools Championships.
Munro started the day with a win in the junior 80m hurdles. She convincingly added long jump before the rain set in, bringing an end to the day’s field events. Later in the programme, she took the 100m/200m sprint double.
Munro has competed at the Children’s Colgate Games on past occasions with some success. Serious injury held her progress as she battled to regain fitness and relearn how to run. The Whanganui Schools Championships highlighted her outstanding potential.
Munro was unable to compete at the North Island Secondary Schools because of a clash with a major family function so her major schools championship debut will have to wait until December when she will compete for Whanganui High School in Hastings at the annual NZ Secondary Schools Championships.
She will be joined in the junior High School team by the promising Hannah Cameron, who at present is with her equestrian team in Tournament Week.
Cameron has demonstrated versatility as a hurdler and relay runner but sees high jump as her best and favourite event. She jumped a personal best 1.56m at Whanganui Schools which was 5cm better than her jump at last year’s NZ Schools debut.
Cameron was also unavailable for North Island Schools but will be in Hastings in December. She should be encouraged that only a couple of centimetres above her best would have put her on the podium last year.
Further strength will be added to the Whanganui High School team by James McGregor, Alex Payne, Charlie McBride, Sean Frieslaar, Luke Howard and Ethan Wells, among others.
The club season starts at Cooks Gardens on Tuesday, October 14. The programme will be announced on the Club website next week.
I will have a busy weekend attending the NZ Secondary Schools Road Relays in Auckland and then will join leading Whanganui sprinter/hurdler Jonathan Maples at an exciting Relay Camp initiative before heading home via the Athletics NZ AGM in Cambridge.
In next week’s column, I will focus on a group of promising school athletes from Whanganui Collegiate School who could make an impact in the season ahead.