Athletics New Zealand – News – Crowd Support the Winner for International Athletes

 
The common thread from all the stars who performed at International Track Meet at Christ’s College yesterday was that the crowd support was a huge factor.

Shot put star Tom Walsh and miler Nick Willis rode that support to emphatic victories, while other athletes had vociferous backing from the crowd in their battles with international competitors.
 
Three-time New Zealand champion Tom Walsh will be the happiest of the group today, after stamping his class on the meet in winning the Newstalk ZB Shot Put with a sensational throw of 19.83 metres.  He broke his own Canterbury record by half a metre, and moves ahead of the great Les Mills into second on the NZ alltime rankings, behind only his teenage rival Jacko Gill.

Walsh, the three-time New Zealand senior champion despite still being a young man himself – a month short of his twenty-first birthday – was also just 27cm from achieving the qualifying standard for the IAAF World Championships in Moscow in August.
 
Walsh said that the support of the crowd was a huge help in getting him fired up and throwing well. “We don’t get crowds like this at home very often, so having them around was awesome” he said today. Walsh now heads to Australia for two weeks of training with Australian junior record holder Damien Birkinhead, who finished second to Walsh yesterday, and plans to use competitions in Tasmania, Victoria, and Sydney to chase the 20.10m qualifying standard for Moscow.
 
In other events, Nick Willis gave a superb display of middle distance running in difficult wind conditions, winning the New Balance mile impressively in 4.08.16. He paid tribute to the roar from the 3000-strong crowd, who the organisers brought in across the the 4th lane of the track to provide support.

“The atmosphere with that crowd was fantastic, it’s like running in a cauldron” he said. He said he was very happy with his run, and said it was a good stepping stone to his attempt to post a World Championships qualifying time for the 1500m in Sydney next month.
 
The other middle distance events were picked up by international athletes, with Lucy van Dalen being outsprinted by Dutch star Susan Kuijken in the Brian Taylor Memorial 3000m, Zoe Buckman of Australia taking out the Fountaine Design Women’s 800m, and Englishman Sam Petty taking the Kalamazoo Men’s 800m in the last stride.

Just 0.01s separated Petty and defending champion Brad Mathas of Wanganui, in a desperate finish after Mathas had led until the final metre of the race before Petty threw himself across the line for the win.
 
The 3000m was a similar story – van Dalen led comfortably all the way, but Kuijken swept past in the home stretch, winning in the excellent time of 9min11.59sec. “The crowd was amazing, there was just such a roar – I’m stoked with that, it was a really good race” she said afterwards. Van Dalen now heads back to her Melbourne base to continue preparations for the Australian Grand Prix events coming up.
 
Performance of the day in the sprint events came from Black Sticks hockey star Anita Punt, who took out a fine 100m-300m double against some of NZ’s top sprinting talent – a performance which points to a huge potential in the sport for the 25-year-old. The closest finish of the day was in the Christchurch Casino 100m, in which Punt and Canterbury local Kelsey Berryman were credited with the same time, but the photo finish camera awarded the win to Punt by the finest of margins. Her win in the Sharp Copiers 300m was more emphatic but no less impressive, winning by over a second from Auckland’s Zoe Ballantyne and Canterbury’s Fiona Morrison.
 
Throughout the meet, and sometimes in shared events, a range of international stars were competing in the new Quadrathlon format, contested over 4 events for the men (100m, long jump, shot put, and 800m), with Auckland’s Scott McLaren taking first place with 2813 points ahead of Australian Stephen Cain.

Local teenager Jesse Bryant upstaged American star Jake Arnold for 3rd. Russian pole vaulter Max Mischenko posted a creditable performance in 7th, with several excellent young local athletes relishing the chance for some international competition.
 
Four competitors took part in the women’s competiton over three events (100m, long jump, and shot put), with the exciting young Auckland heptathlete Portia Bing, who finished 5th in the World Junior Championships in Barcelona last year, taking the win from Australian Brooke Stratton, and Kiwi Olympian Sarah Cowley.

American pole vaulter Megan Jamerson, like Mischenko, was also competing in a multi-event programme for the first time, after coming to Christchurch for the Summer Vault event held in the ReStart Mall on Thursday.
 
Full results are available at  https://internationaltrackmeet.co.nz/athletes/results-3

Athletics New Zealand – News