New athletics season upon us

POISED: Sprinrter-jumper Kelsey Berryman is in the right form to set new personal bests at her favourite track at Cooks Gardens during the Cooks Classic in January.

There is no surer sign that the new season is almost upon us than a raft of coaching conferences, meetings and pre- season camps.

Just 10 days ago I was at an executive meeting of New Zealand Schools that looked at the season ahead at a national level. The end of the year's New Zealand SchoolsTrack and Field Championships and at the beginning of December was discussed at length and at the same time looked ahead to the cross country in Christchurch next June.

Next year's track and field in Hastings was looked at and how to cope with the clash with NCEA's final day of exams with Day 1 of the competition in the late afternoon.

Today I am at the same Hastings venue for Wanganui Collegiate's annual pre-season athletics camp followed at the weekend with the distance runners competing in the Rotorua Ekden Relay that circumnavigates Lake Roturua on the traditional Rotorua Marathon circuit.

This year's camp and relay has attracted a record 31 athletes prepared to give up three days of holidays to prepare for the challenges of the season ahead which bodes well.

Between the NZSS executive meeting as well as enjoying a wonderful four day break in Sydney I returned to attend an athletics conference in Christchurch which concentrated on jumping events.

It was stimulating to be involved with a large group of coaches from the elite to club level able to look at high jump, long and triple jump which especially the latter have been amongst our weakest events internationally.

The attendees left determined to reverse this and bring jumping events to share the greener grass of throws and middle distance on the New Zealand athletic scene.

I look back and realise that it is some time since a Whanganui athlete gained prominence in jumps. Tracy Phillips who was educated at Wanganui High School won a bronze medal at the 1990 Commonwealth Games. Scott Newman who attended Wanganui Collegiate and went on to be CEO of Athletics New Zealand still holds the Collegiate high jump record of 2 metres set in 1987.

Newman's triple jump record was broken when Daniel Natusch took the New Zealand Schools triple jump record of 14.95 which eclipsed the previous NZ Schools record by 50 centimetres and Newman's by a metre, while the 2004 record still stands.

Natusch also won the long jump that year with an impressive 7.61 metre wind assisted jump. Since then Fiona Stephenson, Sophie Chiet, Pip Symes, Max Attwell, and Libby van Zannten have won New Zealand Schools or Oceania jumps medals.

Encouragingly in April Logan Henry and Genna Maples won jump medals in the respective junior boys and girls grades at North Island.

At the conference a number of athletes acted as demonstrators and was great to see sprinter-jumper Kelsey Berryman show such excellent form. Her two previous personal bests have been set at Cooks Gardens at the Cooks Classic.

We have moved the event to the evening from the pre-meet spot when she set her previous best and looking at her form she could well set a personal best and also a meet and track record.

This, along with the traditional mile and the New Zealand Youth 3000 metre Championships, will be feature events at January's Cooks Classic that once again will be a season highlight.

NZ High Performance coach and campaign and planning manager in the New Zealand High Performance Programme and also jumps event leader, Terry Lomax, led the conference and will be joining my camp group as the 2016 guest coach.

He has wide experience as I can testify as he was an outstanding team coach on at least three international teams I managed. The young athletes are indeed privileged.

It is a busy weekend for the local club. Photo finish expert Craig Brown is coming from Christchurch on Saturday to install our new computers and photo camera kindly funded by the Whanganui Powerco Trust.

On the same weekend Mark Harris from Masterton is conducting a Run Jump Throw basic coaching course organised by Jodie Brunger from Sport Wanganui and next week at 4.30pm on Monday the Children's Club kicks off the new season with seniors starting at 7pm on Tuesday.