Hard grind and new technique turned into Kerr’s gold

HŌ igh jumper Hamish Kerr bears fond memories of his three years in Palmerston North. They were a turning point in him becoming the Commonwealth Games gold medallist at Birmingham. Seven years ago he was in the Massey University hostels as an 18-year-old but as a jumper he arrived injured, so much so he found it difficult to even walk. He was using a technique called power jumping, which inflicted stress on the take-off leg similar to a Chinese burn on your bone; a twisting pressure. That technique was never going to endure.

At the Palmerston North club he soon came under the influence of jumps coach Anne Thomson who says she did not let him jump for 18 months. He took medical advice, exercised in the gym to get stronger and his mother in Auckland helped him stay positive.

He was studying agri-commerce and a placement took him to a farm out behind Raetihi where he could climb fences without jarring.

On his return to the sport, he not only had unfinished business, he had to start jumping all over again using new techniques.

He would work out with the children and one day a 10-year-old said to him: ‘‘You’ll get better at it’’.

In his third year at Massey, the hard-training grind took him to theWorld University Games in Taiwan and when his time at Massey was up, he went to Christchurch to be alongside coach Terry Lomax. At the Birmingham Games, many noticed how he would replace the bar after a jump. That was what he had to do during years of training on his own. He won at Birminghamwith a jump of 2.25 metres and he holds the New Zealand record of 2.31m. That is 7 feet 7 inches in old measure, almost the height of my ceiling.

By the way, his Australian competitor, Brendon Starc, held the Palmerston North track record until Kerr supplanted it.

Everything is paying off for Kerr who could find himself among the money with invitations to the Diamond League events in Europe.

Meanwhile, given New Zealand sprinter Zoe Hobbs was sixth in the 100m final, it seemed crazy that Eddie Osei-Nketia, who had been beating most of Australia’s best, was not at

Birmingham.

He would have beaten three-quarters of the field and glancing at the personal bests of the 80 athletes in the 100m, some

Palmerston North club sprinters could have run faster.

New Zealand only sends athletes if they are likely to win a medal when surely their chances of reaching a final should be theminimum criteria.

Athletics is a foundation Games sport after all, not so team sports such as rugby sevens, netball, hockey and 3x3 basketball. Add up all of their reserves and support staff taking up countless seats in the planes and athletics had to make do with a quota of only 18.

Every country is allowed one person in athletics and so the tiddler nations, such as St Helena, plonk them in the 100m where a long last is not as embarrassingly obvious as in amiddle-distance event.

Meanwhile, at a stretch, Manawatū can genetically claim a bit of Birmingham double gold medallist swimmer Lewis Clareburt.

The Clareburts were a Palmerston North family and four brothers attended Palmerston North Boys’ High School in the late 1970s, including Lewis’ father, David.

Nicknamed Dingo, he was involved in the Palmerston North Surf Life Saving Club.

From school, he worked at Millar & Giorgi Ltd before moving to Wellington in 1984 to open the Man To Man menswear shop where Lewis is one of the clothing models. At Boys’ High, sportwas David’s forte – as a rugby player, a boxing champion, and a strong freestyle and breaststroke swimmer.

Is golf a winter sport?

For those who don’t ascribe to climate change, go and ask golfers from the wider Manawatū.

With the winter’s storms and heavy downpours, golf courses have been closed more than ever due to flooding, in places never seen before, as well as fallen trees. Heaviest hit have surprisingly been previously all-weather courses on the sand belt of the western coast. Extreme rain has inundated Marton’s course at Santoft south through Foxton, taki, Waikanae to Paraparaumu Beach.

Sand country is what farmers like to use for grazing stock on free-draining runoffs in winter.

But it obviously has a limit to its water-table capacity, hence the existence of sand-dune lakes. Hardest hit has been the popular Levin course at Moutere, which is now a lakes course and such flooding kills fairway grasses.

The Rangitīkei course at Bulls has been closed in recent weeks because of water, and it is a hilly course. Palmerston North’s course at Brightwater has been battling the wet and like most has had to restrict the use of golf carts. Tough times.