ATHLETICS: The Central Team has been a national leader in junior athletics development and it is clear on the evidence of Friday evening that there is another crop of juniors ready to step up this season.
Many juniors who performed well on Tuesday returned to Cooks Gardens to further highlight their
early-season form. Carl McKenzie, who had run a personal best 400 metres on Tuesday, stepped up to 3000m - winning in an excellent 8 minutes 46.87sec from Kim Hogarth.
Hogarth, a New Zealand mountain-team member (Palmerston North) had a busy programme, running also in the 800 metres and 1500 metres over the short two-hour programme, winning the latter in a fraction over 4min.
The 800 metres was won by promising Collegiate junior athlete Ben Osborne in 1minute 59.54seconds ? thus becoming the first Collegiate athlete to break 2min in his first two-lap outing of the season.
Daniel Natusch continued his good form in winning both the 100 metres and long jump, the latter in a personal best 6.85 metres which leaves him two centimetres from Collegiate's oldest record set back in 1974.
Veronica Torr (Palmerston North) confirmed her form with standout performances over 100 and 200 metres and looks to set for a big season.
Lucy van Dalen set her second Collegiate under-16 record in a week by winning the 800 metres in 2min 15.73sec, slicing nearly 4sec from her own best and in the process winning an excellently competitive race from Chantal Fromont (on her comeback) and Sonja Bowe (Palmerston North) and team-mate Sarah Tatton.
The opening event of the Carol McNie Memorial Meeting was won by her son Staurt McNie and equally fitting that it was in Carol's specialist hammer event. Staurt's sister Millie performed well in coming second in the female grade hammer.
Seafina Akeli had a good season opener with a 47.93 javelin effort in a series that included a 50metre-plus foul.
The Central Team competes in Hastings this weekend in the opening qualifying round of the NZ Teams competition.
