Stuff Digital Edition

Attention switches to cross-country

Alan Adamson

The local athletic scene’s focus has moved to cross-country and road events, with a full programme of events scheduled for the coming months.

■ Hughes Memorial, Hāwera, June 4. ■ June Dorne Cup, Hutt Valley, June

11.

■ Anderson Rally Dannevirke, June

24.

■ North Island cross-country championships, Taupō, July 2.

■ New Zealand cross-country championships, Taupō, July 30.

It is great to see the efforts being made to improve the results achieved in the longer distance events, including the emergence of P Norty Distance Project, a group of dedicated athletes training together.

■ On the international scene we have seen former Manawatū athlete Hamish Kerr competing in the Diamond League meetings in Europe.

While not quite achieving the results he had hoped for, it would have provided him with valuable experience competing at the top level.

An added bonus would have been with the last meeting at Birmingham, Hamish would have had been able to try the facilities he will compete on at the Commonwealth Games later this year.

Hamish now heads back to Australia to start his preparation for the

Oceania championships which start in Mackay on June 7.

Joining him in Mackay will be Manawatū athletes Angus Lyver, Forbes Kennedy, Kimberley Walsh and Emma Ferguson, who would have all been training hard

■ The popular winter track series kicks off this weekend, with the first event of the series in Masterton tomorrow.

The meeting is a quickfire one starting at 1pm, with the final event at 2.20pm.

Athletes have the option of competing in the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m or the distance option of 1000m/3000m/5000m combined events.

Field eventers have the option of throwing the javelin and hammer throw, or jumping in the high jump and long jump.

The second meeting of the series is in Palmerston North on July 17.

■ As anticipated there needed to be some hard calls made in selecting the New Zealand team for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in August, with throwers making up most of the team.

With the games organisers imposing limits on team sizes and some sports having quotas imposed, there was bound to be disappointments.

Selection standards were based on the expectation they would rank highly in their event.

It is harder on our sprinters and horizontal jumpers, where a qualifying performance will not be considered if the wind readings exceed the allowable limit.

Similarly, the odds were stacked against the inclusion of relay teams because of each member being counted as part of the quota.

■ I have noticed the number of Givealittle funding requests athletes are finding they need to put their hands out for to be able to compete in international competitions.

Unlike most team codes, track and field is an individual sport, with athletes often asked to self fund or pay a substantial proportion of the costs to represent their country.

These costs can be quite substantial, especially if there is more than one competition involved.

Athletes who have been selected for both the Oceania championships and the junior world championships are looking at having to contribute about $10,000.

I can recall making comment many years ago when I compared the career decisions two of our club’s most promising athlete had to make.

Mark Ranby and Nick Cowan were both national track and field age-group titleholders and highly regarded rugby players who both went on to represent their country.

Mark became an All Black and became financially secure.

Nick chose athletics and needed to go into debt arranging loans to cover the cost of competing at the world championships.

It appears nothing has changed.

Sport / Regional

en-nz

2022-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

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