Young athletes produce good results despite chilly weather on club night

WINNING RUN: The successful girls' team, Mia Gemmell (left), Libby Abbott, Caitlyn Alabaster, Jane Lennox, Alice Bird and Jazmin Phillips at the Rotorua Ekiden finish.PHOTO/JEFF PHILLIPS

THE CHILLY, windy and damp conditions that greeted athletes at the first major club night of the season on Tuesday came in contrast to the warm sunshine enjoyed by the 35 who attended the pre-season camp in Hastings and Ekiden Relay in Rotorua last week.

In spite of the weather on Tuesday, there were many encouraging performances. New Zealand top-ranked youth 400-metres runner Harry Symes should be pleased with his one-lap effort, stopping the clock at 51.52 seconds. He also won the 100 metres as part of his warm-up, in 11.81 seconds, against a headwind. Symes demonstrated once he can master a run-up he can add long jump to his strengths. His jump for second of 5.65m was more than 30cm behind the take-off mark. The event was by won triple-jumper Nick Brown, with a 5.75m effort that suggests he can consistently jump over 6m. Fellow triple jumper Roimata Hipango took the female long jump.

Grace Godfrey, like Symes, had performed well at the Hastings pre-season camp in Hastings and won the female 400m. Godfrey, who has high aims in the one lap event, should be pleased with her 1:03.78 second early season effort that bodes well for the challenges ahead.

Godfrey, however, had to take second place to Wanganui Intermediate student Genna Maples over the 100m. Maples had won the Colgate 11-year-old 100m and 200m and long jump, in January in Wellington. A serious gymnastics injury kept her away from the track for most of the rest of last summer. She once again demonstrated her potential on Tuesday evening, when she also jumped 4.52m for second in the long jump and finished second to Donna Martin in the shot, with a 9.63m effort. She clearly has combined event potential to add to her sprinting prowess.

The distance runners who attended the camp in Hastings last week travelled to Rotorua on Friday, to run in the annual Ekiden Relay on Saturday.

Ekiden relays are over the classic marathon distance. In the case of Rotorua, the course around Lake Rotorua. There are six runners in a team, with legs ranging from 5-9km. The Wanganui Collegiate teams retained the school team trophies won in 2014.

Although there was only modest opposition in the school grade, the boys did take line honours, winning the male section, with the girls winning the female section. The girls showed considerable promise in the fact that a very young team, who included two Year 9 students (Caitlyn Alabaster and Libby Abbott) and one Year 10 student (Mia Gemmell), were only minutes slower than the strong winning combination last year (3h 8m as opposed to 3hr 5m). The other team members were Alice Bird, Jazmin Phillips and Jane Lennox.

It was therefore no surprise that two who had run in Rotorua won the first 1500m races of the season. Christian Conder had a comfortable run, outpacing training partner Louis Hogan over the final 200m. The girls' race was a tight affair, with NZ Schools Cross Country representative Jane Lennox winning the close sprint home from Megan Mackay.

Both should be pleased with their early season times of 5:11.58 and 5:11.76 respectively.

The club night doubled as the Collegiate open championships, the junior one was held in term 1 and continues over the next two Tuesdays.

Entry is open to all school and club athletes.

With only just over two weeks to the first regional meeting in Masterton, these early season races are important, vitally so as the New Zealand Schools are at the beginning of December in Timaru.