Richmond Wells in action over the sticks at the Collegiate Inter House match in February.
The old saying that if it was easy everyone would do it certainly applies to some of the athletics disciplines in Track and Field.
Pole vaulting, decathlon, heptathlon, hammer, steeplechase and long hurdles certainly fall into that category. I feel a little sorry for proud medal winners in these events who return to be told that their award was soft because of the size of the field.
Richmond Wells was one such athlete returning from the New Zealand Championships with a gold medal from the under 18 vault where he was the sole competitor.
Vaulting is a complex skill that demands speed, agility, strength and courage and presents many equipment demands for the athlete to overcome. Wells' involvement in vaulting is because he has high potential as a decathlete (another demanding event) and the vault is an important skill to learn.
The win was not easy for Wells as the opening height was just a smidgeon below his personal best, without the advantage of a series of preliminary heights. He managed this on his first attempt and cleared a new best with his second vault (3.05 m). Wells had a good meeting finishing 4th in the 110 m Hurdles with a new personal best of 15.30 seconds. He has now run three consecutive bests improving a second over the past fortnight. Wells set another best over 300 metre hurdles in which he finished 5th and also ran in the Manawatu/Wanganui under 18 4x400 metre team that finished 4th.
Club night on Tuesday saw the conclusion of the Whanganui Secondary Schools Championships where the focus was on these harder events. Lexi Maples set a Wanganui Collegiate School record in the hammer (37.14m) with Sophie Andrews (High School) also performing well (34.83).
Richmond Wells won both the vault and 300 metre hurdles. Sophie Redmayne who had finished 8th at the NZ Championships at the weekend with her first sub 48 second run (47.98) was just a little over 48 seconds on Tuesday running into a home into strong breeze,
Jane Lennox, recovering from illness, finished 5th in the weekend over the 2000 metre steeples ran an almost identical time on Tuesday to take the Whanganui title closely followed by Ashleigh Alabaster with an outstanding debut run (7:42 .64). Liam Back 4th at the weekend with a personal best 6:29 78 took the Whanganui Schools title.
In the accompanying club events Rebecca Baker ran well over 1600 metres and Genna Maples and Emma Osborne had a great battle over 300 metres with respective slick times of 41.29 and 41.59, while Tom Mathews who missed the 400 metre hurdle on Sunday through sickness enjoyed the competition in the boys 300 metre hurdle winning in 49.91.
Hamilton turned on wonderful weather for the three day New Zealand Track and Field Championships and athletes responded with some outstanding results especially on the Sunday where we were treated to some world class performances.
Kelsey Berryman who has won three times in a row at our own Cooks Classic leapt to a wind aided personal best 6.40 metres backed up by another windy 6.37 metres and yet another World Universities legal B qualifier of 6.20 metres.
Joseph Millar set a New Zealand Record and World Qualifying mark in the 200 metres to add to his NZ Resident Record over 100 metres earlier at the meet.
Olympic shot champion Tomas Walsh did his stuff in the circle with an impressive 21 metre + series while Eliza McCartney just a little below her best, still off a shortened run, impressed with 4.55 world class vault.
Earlier in the meet our own 13-year-old Genna Maples, who required dispensation to compete in the under 18 long jump, impressed with her maturity in a quality field. She may not quite have matched the massive 5.74 metre jump at Wanganui Schools, but had her best series with three jumps over 5.50 metre to take bronze with 5.54 metres. Maples also ran in the 4x100 under 18 team (bronze) with three of the quartet from Whanganui (Olivia Seymour and Grace Godfrey along with Lydia Bamford (Palmerston North) combined well.
The 4x400 team (Maples, Emma Osborne, Sophie Redmayne and Godfrey) took silver in the under 18 with a truly outstanding effort as a young Collegiate School team against regional selections.
They broke the Collegiate record set by the under 16 NZ Schools winning quartet in December by eight seconds and set a time faster than the NZ Schools Senior record.
The other medal came from Collegiate team captain Keiran Pere in the under 18 triple jump. The Whanganui contingent set 14 personal bests in Hamilton.