HOP, SKIP,JUMP: Roimata Hipango in action late last month at the start of her journey to national rankings. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
THE North Island Secondary Schools Track and Field Championships in Auckland at the weekend was a breakthrough for Collegiate triple jumper Roimata Hipango.
Hipango has been threatening to break into National rankings throughout the past month and at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland she opened the competition with a personal best of 11.18m and produced three other jumps beyond her previous best, winning the competition with an 11.30m jump that places her 2nd in the National rankings.
Hipango also finished 4th in the Long Jump with a 5.20m personal best, which rounded off an excellent meeting for the Collegiate Club Captain and also ran the anchor leg for the Wanganui Senior Girls' 4 x 100m team (Lulu Kelly, Myah Jex-Blake and Kitty Cleary) that finished second. The changeovers were smooth which helped as the team lacked top-ranked sprinters. Myah Jex-Blake has been injured for the past fortnight, after a basketball ankle injury. She bravely ran the back-straight leg but was unable to start in the 300m hurdles the next morning, an event she had every right to expect a medal in.
The other break-through performance came from Harry Symes. Symes had run a personal best for 4th place in the NZ Youth 200m earlier in the month and recent training had suggested that he had every chance of success stepping up to 400m, following his impressive 50.65s in late February. He stopped the clock at 49.71s for his first sub-50s one lap. He finished 3rd, losing the silver medal by 100th of a second. Symes also ran the anchor leg for the winning 4 x 100m Boys' team, where the Collegiate School quartet (Sam Merson, James Davis and Stephen Perofeta) demonstrated outstanding baton work to win in 44.22s. This team, as well as anchor runner Symes, looks set for further improvement later in the year.
Symes also finished 4th in the 200m after long delays at the start with protests. Symes seemed phased by what was happening and had a poor start. The smoothness of the heat was gone, but he was rewarded with a personal best 22.60s narrowly missing out on a medal. Symes also ran in the 4 x 400m which finished 3rd. The team was Harry Symes, Luke Gemmell, Tate Harte and Connor McErlich. Although the time was not fast, the inexperienced first-time runners all showed determination and potential and will strive to emulate the team of 2014.
Alice Bird took the remaining medal with another good steeplechase performance. The race was won by Wellington's World Youth-bound athlete, Kelsey Foreman. Bird ran well as she quickly covered a possible break from the following pack to move firmly into 2nd place, but it did mean that she ran the rest of the race on her own. Only two places behind her was the find of the meeting, with young Jane Lennox finishing in 4th position, only losing a medal by a fraction of a second. This was Lennox's second serious Steeplechase and she took 10s off her previous best to record a time that places her on the NZ rankings.
The pleasing aspect of the Wanganui effort was the emergence of a number of young athletes, many of whom return in the same grade next year. Grace Godfrey ran a personal best 400m to win her heat in an impressive 60.54s. She was marginally slower in the final (60.91s) to finish 5th, and with a year left in the grade, she is an exciting prospect. In the same Intermediate grade, Lexi Maples ran in her first major final qualifying in the 400m as the 8th fastest, but managed to beat one in the final and left the competition with a new personal best. In the 200m she also scraped into the final in 8th position and showed determination and promise by finished 5th in the final.
Kate Tylee also had a breakthrough meeting, as her sprinting has come a long way. She was disappointed to miss the 100m final by one place, but gained outstanding consolation by finishing 5th in her 70m Hurdle event with a substantial personal best, while Hayley Artz of Ruapehu College finished 6th in the junior long jump 3ith a 4.73m leap was another athlete who has the potential to progress in the sport.
Stephen Perofeta was another athlete to improve during the meeting. He ran a personal best in the 100m heat to qualify in 8th position and finished the final in 6th position having taken another ths of his previous best (11.61s). This track speed will benefit this touch and rugby and sevens player, and he should go into the winter confident that he has increased speed.
My next article should be from the USA when I will report on the major meetings in California which feature two Wanganui athletes, Max Attwell and Geordie Beamish.