Big Weekend for New Zealand Athletes

It’s a big weekend for New Zealand athletes with the New Zealand Mountain Running Champs and lots of action overseas with the Australian Track & Field Championships, World University Cross Country Champs, Nagano Marathon and Paris Marathon.

Talented fields for New Zealand Mountain Running Championships

The fields may be small for the New Zealand Mountain Running Championships in Motueka on Saturday but there will be plenty of talent competing.

Glenn Hughes of Wellington will be up against defending champion Dougan Butler of Hawera and the tough Phil Costley in the senior men raced over a demanding 14.2km on Mt Campbell.

Hughes the national junior champion in 2000 and 2001 and senior champion in 2009 at Wainuiomata has competed at the world championships. Costley (42), from Nelson, is three times senior mountain champion in 2000, 2001 and 2005.

Also in with a chance of a medal in the seniors is Grant Guise of Canterbury.

Hannah Newbould of Canterbury the recently crowned national senior 5000m champion steps up to the mountains as one of the favourites for the women’s title over 7.2km. Last year’s junior champion Nicole Mitchell from Wellington who was second in the W20 5000m at Waitakere has entered the senior race along with the national 10,000m champion Sally Gibbs from Tauranga. However the 48 year old has entered in the W45 division. Mitchell was the sole New Zealander competing at last year’s world mountain championships in Albania where she finished 18th in the junior women.

Helen Rountree of Hamilton and Demelza Murrihy-Topp from Wellington are entered in the senior event.

Ariana Harper of Wellington, the national W17 800m and 1500m champion, should add the junior women’s 5.7km mountain title to her list of successes this year.

Ryan McAlister of Wellington, Thomas Anderson of Nelson and Allister Meffan of Nelson are entered in the junior men’s event over 7.2km.

All races start from various points at 12 noon.

The championships are also a selection trial for the world mountain running championships in Italy in early September.

Thirty four New Zealanders at Australian Champs

A large contingent of New Zealand athletes will be competing this weekend in Melbourne  at the Australian Track & Field Championships.

Headed by Commonwealth Games Decathlon medallist Brent Newdick, entered in the Decathlon and Pole Vault and double New Zealand Sprint champion Monique Williams, the group of New Zealand athletes is made up mostly of Development athletes. It is the last event of the summer season for many athletes, while some will head to Europe for further Olympic qualifying attempts.

Also in action will be Nicholas Southgate in the Pole Vault, chasing a second B qualifier of 5.00 metres for selection for the World Junior championships in Barcelona.

Kristie Baillie has had a very good season, dropping her 400 metres personal best over 400 and coming within a whisker of beating Williams over 200 metres recently.

Joseph Millar had a breakthrough over 100 metres at the New Zealand Championships, rising to No 4 on the NZ all-time list with 10.36 seconds. He’ll be keen to carry on that improvement and edge closer to the 10.21 seconds required for Olympic qualification.

Also competing will be three of the four New Zealanders who have achieved A qualifiers for the London Paralympics. Peter Martin, Holly Robinson and Jessica Hamill will be pressing their claims in anticipation of the world body announcing the quota for each country.

Competition begins Friday morning and finishes Sunday afternoon.

World University Cross Country Championships

Daniel Wallis will be the sole New Zealand representative at the very competitive World University Cross Country Champs  in Lodz, Poland  on Saturday. At the last University championships in 2010 at Ontario Canada, Andrew Davidson, the New Zealand Cross Country champion finished 18th.

Nagano and Paris Marathons – Novices chase Olympic Berths

Lisa Robertson and Mary Davies will be chasing the two remaining marathon spots for New Zealand at the London Olympics. With Kimberley Smith already selected, the two relative novices will be chasing the qualifying standard of 2 hours 32 minutes.

Robertson has just one marathon under her belt, winning the Auckland Marathon last October in just under 2 hours 42 minutes, while Davies, winner of the Wellington Round the Bays half marathon in February has run three with a best of 2h 38m 48s.With New Zealand’s other marathon hope, Fiona Docherty out with injury, Robertson and Davies have a chance for selection if they can drop their times sufficiently.