2016 Grand Prix T&F Meeting Newtown Park Wellington Sat 22 Oct

Sean Pay

Results

This meeting was the first Grand Prix meeting for the season. According to Athletics Wellington this is a new concept with the intention of having one Grand Prix meeting a month. These meetings are intended to attract out of town runners and will use a points system using the WMA Age grading calculator and another system for athletes with a disability. There will be prize money.

The turnout for Saturday was pretty good if I don’t say so myself, especially since some clubs had other events on that day. There were a few new faces and the predictable interest from high school age athletes looking to get ready for the NZ Secondary schools champs in December but there were also a good number of field eventers from Kiwi and Shaka Sola’s throws dojo. That man is a laugh a minute and brings a bit of colour to the park.

The first event of the programme was a 3000m track race, which is a bit unusual. Harrison Burnard led from start to finished in what turned out to be a time trial for him. He wasn’t really challenged although young Joel Carman closed the gap a bit toward the end of the race. Carman ran the fastest time for the two 1500m races held as the last item on the programme. I predict big things from both of these runners.

It was nice to see Mark Tinkle back jumping. He got to 1.75m which while not his best is okay for this early in the season.

Mention should also be made o 13yo Daniel du Toit (now with WHAC) who shut out the personable Sean Lake and the indefatigable Peter Ballie in the 5000m judged walk.  

Some photos below:


3000m Photos

3000m start

100m Photos

High Jump Photos

Philip Bewley

Mark Tinkle

Shot Put Photos

Michelle Scriven

Long Jump Photos

Aneurin Hunt

Elsa Keene

Finn Neely

Jack Roil

400m Photos

Katelyn Sceats

Callan Rothmets

Maddie Feaunati and Charlot Floodsmith-Ryan

Discus Photos

Kulika Puk

Jonathan Sceats

Graham McPhail

200m Photos

Jack Howat

Aaron Rothmets

1500m Photos

1500m race 1 start

Tomas Goodwin & Jack Marshall

Will Bell & Hugh O'Donaghue

Rory Ferguson & Will Bell

Ayesha Shafi

2016 Wellington Waterfront 5km Race Tue 4 Oct

Results

The first race of the new 2016/17 waterfront race season. A chilly night with a nasty northerly breeze which didn't seem to deter the 143 or so starters. A big crowd really, especially when compared to the relatively low numbers turning up for the latter stages of the 2015/16 season. Darryl says the good turnout is due to his vigorous emailing strategy, which sound about right.

The only change from last year is that that there is now only a single start time with everybody starting together. 

Dan Hunt was first home, and rumour has it that he has defected from Scottish Harriers to Victoria University Harriers. Looking for  a university blue Dan?

And one other thing. Scottish might need to include these Tuesday night races into their official website calendar and Facebook page. To date there is no information on this event apart from the Waterfront 5km Race Facebook page.

2016 Inter Provincial Primary & Intermediate Schools XC Champs Waikanae Thu 22 Sep

Sam Idiens (Year 8) brings home the Canterbury relay team to victory and the Dave Dixon Baton

Results

These races are an annual event and for 2016 were hosted by Wellington at Waikanae Park on the Kapiti Coast. Next year the event will be in Timaru.

Weather wise it was fine day which proved spring had arrived, except not in Wellington city (17 degrees compared to 12 degrees in Wellington city. 

Competitors are of primary and intermediate school age (9 to 12) and are the best in their grades in their school regions. 

The regions represented were South Canterbury Canterbury, Tasman and Wellington.  To get selected kids have to compete in a number of zone/sub-regional races to make the final teams of up to 10 in each grade. There were 8 races so about 300 children participated in 8 races. 

The 1km course was interesting and reasonably demanding with a number of rises and downhill sections. Race distances for the first 4 races was 2km (year 5 & 6, girls and boys) while the last 4 races covered 3km (year 7 & 8 girls and boys) 

Canterbury dominated across most of the races and produced some fine team racing.

There was also a 8 1km lap relay with a team member from each grade per region. Once again Canterbury showed their superiority but all teams got plenty of team-mate support.  

Every finisher got a participation medal with medals for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Canterbury won the Phil Costley shield and the Dace Dixon relay Baton. Local Olympian Hamish Carson fresh from Rio presented the winner medals and trophies

Daryl the dude did the timekeeping and as an example of efficiency only used 5 GoPro's rather than the usual 7.