At New Zealand Secondary Schools at Timaru in December, McKinlay was named as “Combined event athlete of the meet”, winning a place in the New Zealand Schools Championship Team.
She strengthened her case for inclusion in the team for California with a series of excellent performances during the second half of January. They included a personal best in shot at the Sola Power Meet in Lower Hutt, a personal best long jump and 100m at the Cooks Classic in Whanganui and solid performances at both the Capital and Potts Classics.
McKinlay equalled her personal best in high jump at Club Night last week in a big field of 18 athletes (clearly, they all want to be like Hamish Kerr) which, along with the progress in the other six events, bodes well for a big points improvement in future meets.
This Saturday McKinlay competes at the Porritt Classic in Hamilton in four events which are day one events of the two-day heptathlon programme. McKinlay will compete in the Athletics New Zealand Championships in March in Dunedin and in Auckland at the Combined Events Championships.
The California tour includes the prestigious Arcadia Combined Events where she follows in the footsteps of former Whanganui athletes Max Attwell (2014) and Lexi Maples (2017).
Jonathan Maples finished third in the 400m hurdles at the Sir Graeme Douglas meeting in Auckland on Sunday, beating one of the three Australians who had finished ahead of him at the Oceania Championships in Suva last June.
Maples looked impressive over the opening two hurdles, covering hurdle 1 to hurdle 2 in 13 strides instead of his usual 14.
He should have had confidence in his new speed and strength and continued with this rhythm for more flights helped by a tail breeze on the back straight. However, he did not fully back himself and lacked his usual smoothness over the next few flights. He came home well, overhauling Australian Angus Proudfoot to finish strongly with his second-best time over the event (52.35s). He will have learned much from the experience. Unfortunately, he was unable to run at Tuesday’s MWA Championships which left New Zealand Schools 300m hurdle champion Damian Hodgson to win unopposed (57.43s).
It was great to see the Manawatu/Whanganui Championships so well supported.
A few years ago MWA changed the championships from a weekend to Tuesday with the two major clubs hosting the event on consecutive weekends. This has avoided clashes with major events at the weekend such as the Classics in late February or the Graeme Douglas and the Porritt Classic in early February.
Last year the MWA Championships were not well supported and the two major clubs, Whanganui and Palmerston North, instigated a major drive to reinvigorate the championships this year. The result was 116 athletes competing with 163 recorded performances. It is good to see large numbers competing which provides challenges in organisation but are the type of challenges that are good to have.
Returning to the New Zealand Schools Team for California it is interesting to note that the 16 athletes came from 15 schools with only Central Southland College having two members in the team. A further three schools were represented in the team of three Para athletes selected for the Australian Championships in Perth in April. The athletes selected came from throughout New Zealand, a further indication of the wide popularity and growth in the sport.
