RowangLive2: 2018 Central Regional League T&F Meeting Round 3 Newtown Park Sat 17 Nov

Sunday, November 18, 2018

2018 Central Regional League T&F Meeting Round 3 Newtown Park Sat 17 Nov

It was a busy day at the park for round 3 of the Central Regional League competition. Starting with the Men’s Hammer at 11.00am a full programme was offered which meant something for everybody.

There was good attendance from the other athletic centres in the region with big cohorts of college age competitors eyeing up the NZSSAA champs in early December.

Strangely master’s grade athletes seemed to be thin on the ground considering that the NI Masters Champs will be at Newtown this coming weekend. There could be reasons for this of course and you are welcome to email them to me.

A sparkle was added to proceedings with Shaka Sola on roving microphone duties giving facts and updates on the various competitions particularly the field events and more particularly throwing events. Shaka injected some interesting music choices into his broadcasts which is perfectly consistent with his wicked sense of humour and mischievous nature. Athletics Wellington should use Shaka more often in a field announcer role not only to brighten things up but to highlight when tight competition and good performances are taking place.

And talking about good performances, there were doubtless many but I will just mention a couple. In the men’s long jump, Jordan Peters the current national champion got out to 7.21 metres which I believe is roughly what he wanted to do on this trip to Wellington.

Over at the pole vault site “serial jumper” Sean Pay catapulted himself over the bar set at 3.80m which I am sure is a PB for him. Getting to 4.00m was out of reach today but who knows what he can get to next time. And to show how things can change, last week Sean got to 1.93m at the high jump but couldn’t pull off a 1.97m. On Saturday he nailed the height so anything is possible on the right day.

There were big fields in the 1500m, 800m and 3000m/5000m races no doubt because of the schools track and field thingy coming up in early December. Interestingly of the 4 who opted for the longer 5000m option, three were 15yo or younger.

Pole Vault Photos