Numbers competing at regional level suggest athletics is alive and well in the lower north

Lucas Martin had to settle for second in the 3000m walk at the second round of the Regional League, but broke his personal best and set a Whanganui Collegiate School record. Photo / Anna Dai

Athletics is alive and well in the lower North Island judging by the encouraging number participating at the weekend in the second Round of the Regional League.

As indicated in last week's Insight considerable work went into making the event possible under Alert Level 2 restrictions. Organisers, particularly co-ordinator Mark Harris (Masterton), George McConachy (meet manager of the three sections in Palmerston North) and former Whanganui Club member Shaka Sola (meet manager of the Throws at the Sola Power Academy in the Hutt Valley) and all participants at the four different sections are to be congratulated on their creativity and solution-based approach to the meetings. All sections were safe and within guidelines and were well supported with some excellent performances.

First Whanganui athlete in action was Josephine Perkins in the 800 metres who is making rapid progress after injury. Perkins should be delighted with her personal best of 2:23.23 in the 800 metres finishing 4th only losing out in the sprint from home.

The 5000 metres combined with the 3000m Walk followed the 800 metres at the middle distance meet. Lucas Martin had to settle for second to last year's New Zealand School s winner Daniel du Toit (Wellington) in the 3000m walk but the gap has been closed and more importantly Martin broke his previous best, set over a year ago, walking under 13 minutes for the first time (12.56.46) and set a Whanganui Collegiate record. This moved him to the top of our points leader board both in the males and overall (World Athletics Comparative tables) with 923 points.

A few minutes later 1500 metre runner Daniel Sinclair leapfrogged Jonathan Maples, who was unavailable, the previous male leader with his 11.26 for 100 metres. Sinclair perhaps made a tactical error in the breezy conditions by taking the pace in the second lap leaving his finish blunted by the additional front running but nevertheless took a further 5 seconds off his best time to come tantalisingly close to reaching his sub 4-minute target stopping the clock at 4:00.99 to finish third for 853 points.

Toby Caro still in Year 10 sliced another 4 seconds off his best for a series of five consecutive personal bests from 800 metres through to 3000 metres. Caro won the percentage improvement prize but was seriously challenged by Oliver Jones who took 40 seconds off his 3000- metre time in the breeze in Palmerston North finishing 9th in a large field in 10:30.85.

Louise Brabyn, like her teammate Sinclair, will have learned some tactical lessons in her 1500 metres in which she finished second in a strong field. She allowed too big a gap to develop on the more experienced Emma Fergusson (Feilding) and although she closed rapidly on the final sprint this came too late.

Brabyn was rewarded with a season's best (4:49.55) just a second shy of her best but will be frustrated in the knowledge of what could have been. At Tuesday's club night she had clearly learned and stuck closely to Oliver Jones and Mathew Sinclair in the Steeplechase and was rewarded with a huge personal best and moves to third on the All-tine Collegiate 2000 metre Steeplechase list (7:16.50)

Maggie Jones had to run into another head wind in her 100 metre hurdles. She took almost 0.3 seconds off her Inglewood time recording 15.07 into a 2 metre/second head wind. Jones also had the satisfaction of recording her best Long Jump to finish second with a wind aided leap of 5.10 metres. Jones increased her lead in the points tables scoring 887 points.

As the Triple Jumper Jacky Dai went into the final round in third place, he stopped worrying about the distance he was jumping and concentrated on winning the competition. He rode a tail wind well to win with his best jump since 2020 of 12.93 metres. He also set a best in long jump 6.19 metres with one of the few legal winds of the day in the horizontal jumps.

Last year's Club Captain Travis Bayler, back from university demonstrated his usual determination and his season's first 400 metres (52.65) suggesting that it will not be long before he is back to his best.

It is good also to see some new faces. Samuel Hermann still in Year 9 ran an outstanding debut in 54.53. The North Island under 14 bronze medal winner over 300 metres looks ready to step up. Theo Almazan is showing real promise in the sprints while Kate Macpherson made further progress in both time and technique over hurdles.

The next meet is in Masterton on 4th of December and in these changing times we may well move from the Alert Levels to the new traffic lights: indeed, different, and confusing times.