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Tuesday, 30 September 2014

2014 Lifestyle 5k Series Wellington Waterfront Tue 29 Sep

Results

The first Tuesday after the start of daylight saving. A brilliantly fine day means an insanely busy waterfront. But this didn't stop Ben Tywman from clinching his 6th straight win in a time of 16.22. It will be interesting to see how far Ben can take this winning streak.


I bet the water will be cold
 
Ben Twyman in his usual spot - at the front
 
 

Wednesday, 24 September 2014

2014 Lifestyle 5k Series Wellington Waterfront Tue 22 Sep


Results

Ben Twyman on his way to his event PB of 16.14 and the fastest overall time for the series.
The 5km series race has been operating on the waterfront for a number of years, 7 or 8 in total.
 
In the early days the series ran along the Hutt Road on an out and back course and for a shorter period of the year. Understandably it was a much more difficult start to get to which probably prevented a number of people from turning up.
 
The waterfront course is much more convenient and while it is not ideal its easy location to the Wellington CBD has no doubt contributed to its success. 
 
The course is an out and back 5km with the turn-around on Oriental Bay. Occasionally a 10km option is offered.
 
The big negative is that the race participants have to navigate their way across a crowded waterfront full of pedestrians, cyclists heading home after work.
 
For this reason I tend to regard the event more as a time-trial rather than a “properly organised” race. It can also be boring once you have done it a few times.
 
The series is run from August to April staring at 5.30pm each Tuesday fine weather or foul. It costs $8 to enter although bulk entry is now offered which seems sensible.
 
 Numbers turning up range from around 62 to 150 plus so it must t must be a major money spinner for the Scottish Club/Olympic clubs which share the organisation.
 
The prizes are good and it appears easy to manage from a time keeping and marshalling point of view. Safety is pretty good unless you consider runaway dogs and boy racer cyclists as a risk.  
 
For the current series which started in early August Ben Twyman has won the last 5 races which must be a record of some kind.
 
 
His times have ranged from 16.47  to 16.14 although how quick you can get around the course can be determined by weather and human congestion.  It will be interesting to see how he goes and lests hope that Scottish give him free entry from now on.
 
 

Wednesday, 10 September 2014

Lance Smith - Super Coach




 
Athletics Stalwart & Soutland Legend Lance Smith: Photo John Hawkins/Fairfax

Athletics has been one of Southland's more successful sports in recent years and Lance Smith has played a major part. DON WRIGHT explains why he is a prime candidate for The Southland Times Legend of Sport honour.

Lance Smith's part-time administrative position as Athletics Southland sports manager for the last 12 years has been accompanied by outstanding success as a coach.

It has driven him to further voluntary service in that area well beyond the course of duty.

Significantly, he is the only athletics coach to win the prestigious coach of the year recognition, at the Southland Sports Award dinner in 2012.

One of the judges for more than 30 years, esteemed Invercargill distance running identity Mike Piper, said at the accompanying presentation that Lance's remarkable contribution and success meant that on a population basis, Southland had been New Zealand's most successful province and breeding ground of young track and field athletes.

To that stage Smith had nurtured 16 athletes to represent New Zealand with two more in the interim.

Piper was moved to say: "The past five years [2008-2012] have seen performances of Southland athletes attain heights never before seen in the province and to a large extent can be attributed to the efforts either directly or indirectly to Lance."

Many Southlanders involved with athletics had come to acclaim Lance as not only a successful coach but also a "hugely competent athletics manager" with the publication of over 500 weekly bulletins testifying to his tireless hours of input, Piper observed recently.

Lance has placed a high priority on communication in his athletic endeavours, capitalising on 29 years (1961-1990) as an advertising copywriter on radio stations, major advertising agencies and working freelance.

Lance outlined he had been fulltime coach for the Counties Athletic Club during 1999-2002 before moving south to work for Athletics Southland as a sports manager (administrative) until the present day.

"This is a part-time role that allows me time to spend on coaching and coach education."
To make it easier for more people to try, enjoy and succeed was his main focus, he said.

Lance believes that individual athletes know themselves better than he as a coach and that his coaching improved when athletes knew themselves better, contributed to the coaching process and had ownership of their sport.

His goal as a coach is to make himself redundant, to help athletes reach a stage where they are able to make the important decisions and take responsibility for their sport.

A snapshot glance of his achievements and highlights illustrates how successfully he has involved himself in Southland athletics, indeed New Zealand and beyond.

His prowess could be reflected in his being appointed New Zealand team coach to the Oceania Championships in Samoa 2008, Cairns in 2011, Rarotonga earlier this year, New Zealand Athletics team manager and coach to the Commonwealth Youth Games in Isle of Man in 2011 and New Zealand Athletics team manager at the Australian Youth Olympics in Sydney last year. 


"I feel I have achieved as a coach of an athlete if he or she leaves me a better person than when they started . . . The purpose of our training is to compete and the purpose of competing is to win," he explained.

"But winning is not necessarily coming first, it can be learning more about yourself, gaining in confidence, pushing boundaries, learning teamwork, any number of things."

Career high spots have included his guiding Central Southland College student Atipa Mabonga to being the present top-ranked New Zealand under-18 triple jumper and similarly the success of Charlotte Muschamp, presently on a USA scholarship, being a former New Zealand champion triple jumper in under-18 and under-20 grades.

The Edendale athlete who attended Southland Girls' High School recently visited Lance and his partner Debbie and later wrote on a thank-you card: "Lance, I can't thank you enough for all the opportunities you've given me and what you do for Southland, the greatest place in the world. When in doubt, do what a Southlander would do. I'll be back again soon enough."

Greer Alsop, also on an athletics scholarship in the USA at the same university as Muschamp, provided Lance with a career highlight winning silver in the triple jump at the Commonwealth Youth Games. "It was an emotional moment for both of us, two Southlanders on the other side of the world after months of hard work at Surrey Park," he said. "Watching the New Zealand flag fly and an athlete I had worked closely with standing on the medal dais was a memorable moment."

However, Greer had to largely pay her own way, although she had considerable assistance from the Invercargill Licensing Trust Foundation. "Ideally, I would like to see Southland athletes have more financial opportunities to compete more often at a higher level, so they benefited from tougher competition and gained more exposure than what they would achieve at Surrey Park."

Community support, Invercargill Licensing Trust and Community of Southland assistance were invaluable but didn't go far enough, he said.

Distinguished middle distance protege Jordan Rackham had to travel regularly to the North Island for appropriate competition and improvement, he said. "And Jordan is not the only one, as most of the training squad has had to dig deep into their pockets or those of their parents for flights to major meetings.

"If an athlete was the best in Southland, then who was going to push him [or her] to keep improving?" he queried.

 The Southland Times

Tuesday, 2 September 2014

2014 Children’s XC Series Race 4 Grenada North Park Tawa Sun 31 Aug


Individual Results
Team Results

It was a great day for cross-country with a good deal of sunshine and little wind. The Grenada North Park set-up is the 4th in the 5-event series and was organised by Olympic Harriers who have used the venue for their own XC champs.

The course marked out was different from last year with a bit of everything including two hurdles. I would say it is the best course design for any of the series races and even though it was a tough number it had variety which the kids seemed to like.

The fields for all 7 races were large which and the norm for the series. There was good competition which made some of the racing more exciting than what you would normally see in Centre XC races. This is because the races are relatively short which results in some close battles to the finish.

It was an odd thing though when after the last race was over a set of 1km time trials were held to select the relay team from amongst those representing Wellington at the Year 5-8 Inter-Regional XC Competition to be held in Hanmer Springs on 25 Sep. Apart from making kids run two races for the morning, I would have thought that the results from the XC series would have provided the selectors with all of the information required.










 









 









 











Felix Williamson (Scottish) left the field in the dust to win the year 7/8 race