2019 Wellington T&F Meeting Programme B inc Wellington Secondary Schools T&F Champs Residual Events Newtown Park Sat 23 Mar

Results (Hammer and Javelin results not included)

The official results published so far do not show those for the Hammer or the Javelin. 

This is a pity because I understand that a new Wellington Centre Open Women’s Hammer record may have been broken by Montoya Wharehinga with a throw of 52.15m. 

That’s a long way to send a heavy metal ball on the end of a piece of wire out into the paddock. 

But what is worse is that due to the lack of an official with the right grading the record cannot be verified.

Montoya held the previous Wellington record of 51.78m. (She is ranked 3^rd in NZ for 2019 with a throw of 52.63m which she did at the nationals in Christchurch a few weeks ago).

The point I would like to make is that while the officials who are able to turn up do an excellent job there simply aren’t enough of them. 

I see a looming crisis with track and field manpower that probably won’t get any better unless something can be done to entice new blood into the officials’ pool. 

And any initiative has to be driven locally because I doubt that ANZ will have much of a solution. But I digress

For those there on Saturday it was obvious that some competitors were representing schools rather than clubs. 

This is because some events were part of the Wellington Secondary Schools T&F Champs held the previous Thursday.  

The reason why some events are held on the Saturday is because of safety and set-up. This included the Pole Vault, 300m Mixed Hurdles, 2000m Steeplechase and the Hammer throw.

Louis Northcott (Kapiti College), who on a normal track and field Saturday seems to do everything related to jumping, throwing and sprinting, scored a PB in the pole vault by getting over the high bar set at 3.10m.  

Next was Jonathan Sceats (HIBS) who hit 3.00m while his sister Katelyn cleaned up in the female competition with a jump of 1.90m.

David Braitmaier of Newlands College dominated the 300m hurdles simply because he was the only one in it. The message here is that if you don’t turn up you can’t win.

There were four starters of the 2000m steeplechase which was dominated by the brothers Seeds. 

Finn and Jonah both representing HIBS went out 1 and 2 holding onto these places throughout the race. Finn at age 16 won the Intermediate Boys race while 14yo Jonah won the Junior Boys grade.

Coming in 3^rd was Felix Williamson competing for Wellington College: his placing put him 2^nd in the JB grade and probably selection for the North Island Secondary Schools T&F Champs coming up in early April. 

The only female in the race was German born Hannah Stegenwallner who these days runs for Lower Hutt Athletics. She came in 4^th but is clearly going to be someone we will see more of.  

The 3000m ended up being a procession after the first lap with Hiro Tanimoto showing the rest of the field a clean pair of heels. He came home in 9.03 followed by Stephen Day in 9.19 and Alistair Saunders in 9.23. 

I am assuming this race was practice for the 5000m race coming up this weekend which apparently has a large number of entries.

The 1500m later in the programme was all about the Irish. Having watched Kieron Sexton (Vic Uni) at Newtown Park a couple of times now his tactic seems to be to keep close to the front but stay in lane 2 out of trouble until the time is ripe to move. 

He did this on Saturday grabbing the lead on lap two but still having to deal with the potential threat from the other Irishman in the field by the name of Shane O’Rahilly (Scottish).  Kieron came home in his typical fast finish for the win in 4.01 although an unnamed informant told me he was disappointed he didn’t go faster. 

Sexton is currently ranked at 22^nd nationally in 2019 for the distance with a time of 3.56 which he did in Auckland in February. If we ignore Nick Willis and Hamish Carson the only other local to go quicker this year is Sam Hyde-Smith (Scottish) who is ranked at 19^th with a time of 3.55.  This result was also achieved in Auckland in February.

But let’s not forget Shane O’Rahilly who ran 4.03 which is not only a PB but puts him on the 1500m ranking list at 43. 

Third in the race was Dom Godfrey (Scottish) who ran 4.08.  

And gosh there was Mr Tanimoto again. .

The first woman to the finish was Maiya Christini (WHAC) who ran 4.38 for 6^th overall. She was only a few seconds behind Jamie White (Scottish) and held off Finn Molloy (Trentham).  

Maali Kyle-Ford and Esther Kozyniack both members of WHAC continued their rivalry coming in as the 2^nd and 3^rd fastest women to make up the WHAC trifecta.