2016 National Championships Report

by Michael Wray

One week before the younger set hit Dunedin for the Athletics NZ Track and Field Champs, it was the turn of the Masters to have the run (and jump, throw and walk) of the Caledonian Ground.

Is this the first time the same venue has played host to the two varieties of National Track and Field Champs in the same season? And in consecutive weeks? The law of averages suggests the answer to the first question is no, but ANZ have only been holding their championships in early March for a couple of years now so the answer to the second is likely a yes.

The Caledonian Ground is in good shape with a new track surface that compares favourably to the troubled surface that hosted the previous championships in Tauranga. Given the stage of my injury recovery, I can’t make direct comparisons – not being ready to run in spikes yet – but from the gentle runs I did in road shoes it felt like a fast track and those around me were commenting favourably.

The weather forecast, on which us athletes tend to obsess in the lead-up to an event, suggested Otago would offer us something akin to the Southland 2014 Championships (wind, rain, more wind and a tad extra rain). As it happened, there was a token effort at a shower on the Friday that lasted about 10 minutes and the rest of the weekend produced bright sunshine with a light-to-moderate breeze.

The Fiordland contingent had a visible and audible presence, proving a popular hit with their antics. From the “moose call” that tended to accompany one of their number entering the finishing straight of a race, to the post-event lap of honour. The most creative was the “Being John Malkovich” stunt where they all donned Dwight Grieve facemasks to greet his finish in one race. Dwight Grieves everywhere you looked. Disturbing!

The Friday field events started with one of the less popular disciplines: pole vault. It’s a shame that masters women don’t seem interested in the event. In Wellington we have no masters women having contested any pole vault; the record book is entirely empty. As far as the NZMA Champs are concerned, the only female competitors for the last decade have been guest athletes from Australia. At least the sole masters woman this year was an Australian ex-Kiwi (albeit an ex-South African ex-Kiwi!), who I understand may be moving back to NZ next season. The masters men fields aren’t much better. We’ve only needed to handout a bronze medal once in the last decade.  Wayne Doyle competed for the third time in four years and is a model of consistency as he hit the exact same mark of 3.0 in all three appearances.

The oldest competitor at the Champs was Southland’s Alistair Mackay. The 88-year-old competed in the sprints and jumps, with fellow age-grouper Hector Mein accompanying him at times.

David Anstiss, as he so often does, proved himself the master jumper. His 80% graded jump was the pick of the men. Judy Hammond from Wellington scored the highest overall with 80.33%. Seelan Ramiah earned plaudits by breaking the M55 National Record, going 1cm better than his bronze medal M50 performance of 2015. Seelan added the triple jump gold too, showing he can go horizontal and vertical.

M35s Michael Scholten and Dave Couper kept up a good rivalry across the throwing events, including the throws pentathlon. Most of the time it went 1:2 in Michael’s favour, but the javelin proved to be Dave’s favourite event where he finally got the better of it.

Accomplished local thrower Raylene Bates proved to be the pick of the hammer throwers, where the W50 was the only one to achieve a score over 70% and set a new championship record (CR). For the other implements, most eyes were on Glen Watts who set new W75 CRs in the shot, hammer and discus.

Lyn Osmers added to her collection of javelin records. Lyn has the W40, W45 and W50 championship records, as well as the W50 NZ record, and now has the W55 CR and NZ records to add to the set. Lyn collected the shot put CR too.

Rene Otto needed a good javelin and weight throw to come from behind and take the throws pentathlon M45 gold away from David McMillan. In the M60s, Lester Laughton and Allan Hallberg regularly swapped places. The final placing (Allan gold, Lester silver) was set in the penultimate implement but Lester made Allan sweat by eating into the difference during the last throw.

The W35 throws pentathlon was tight. Less than 200 points separated all three athletes and Paula Cotter only won gold by 58 points in the final tally.

Gary Rawson set a new M55 championship record in the pentathlon despite not finishing his 1500m. I know Gary has been carrying an injury, which would have contributed to his decision to only run the first 300m, but you have to wonder if he could have got round to add points and make that record harder to beat for future contestants.

The 3000m walk started the track programme and produced a new Championship Record from Wellingtonian Jackie Wilson (W70). The time of 19:16.46 would have been a new W70 NZ record, except Jackie went even quicker at the Wellington Centre Champs a few weeks earlier. Jackie crossed the line first overall too, beating the male walkers and younger women.

The pick of the 400m races was the M50 contest. Waikato’s Bruce Solomon, newly awarded the status of NZMA sprinter of the year for 2015, had a very close race with local athlete Tony Tan.

Bruce led all the way round but in the finishing straight it looked like Tony – no doubt spurred on by good support from the crowd – was going to finish first. Tony closed the gap to Bruce very quickly and Bruce had to dig deep to produce a little extra spurt, dipping to the line a mere 0.06s ahead. To misquote Casablanca, this was the beginning of a beautiful rivalry. The two sprinters would go head-to-head over all the dashing distances throughout the championships and if you had only been able to pick a small selection of races to watch, you’d have picked the M50 60m, 100m, 200m and 400m.

The women’s 5000m saw Sally Gibbs run from the front, start to finish. Otago’s Shireen Crumpton closed towards the end but Sally was never in any danger and the final gap between the two was a comfortable 16 seconds. Sally’s performance was the first of several to score an age-grade over 90%.

The men’s 5000m lacked the same level of quality but as a competitive spectacle was a more exciting event. M35 Dwight Grieve and M45s Chris Mardon and Robbie Johnston ran as tight bunch throughout. It was never clear who would emerge the victor, not even at the bell when Chris had made a break. Chris, who had won the 5000m last year, held off the challengers to make it two years in a row. Dwight put on a strong finish to pass Robbie in the finishing straight to win his age group ad claim second place overall. It was good to see Ian Calder return strongly to NZMA National competition; his age-grade score being the third best in the male 5000m (just behind Chris and Robbie).

Saturday morning started with the steeplechase. The thin fields for the women were compensated for by reasonable numbers in the older men’s grades, so the 2000m distance produced a decent event. Loris Reed’s 9:37.70 improved her own national record from 2015. The 3000m steeples featured only two competitors, one of which was a guest athlete from Australia.

In the 60m sprints, Tony and Bruce renewed their battle. This time it was Tony who won out, beating Bruce to the M50 title by 0.07s. The M65 race was rather special. Only three competitors, unfortunately, but all three  – Trevor Guptill, Alan Dougal and Laurie Malcolmson – ran performances in excess of 90% despite a 0.9 headwind. Laurie won the race and also scored the highest age-grade of anyone in any event with his 93.15%.

Liz Wilson’s 92.44% was the pick of the women’s 60m performances, running a new championship record and finishing just 0.01s outside her own national record in a competitive W50 race. Vanessa Story, in the W40s, was also within of her own national record 0.01s but gets to celebrate as she finished the “right” side of it.

In the afternoon, Tony Tan left the track with a “Saturday night’s alright” feeling; for the second time in day two he finished a sprint ahead of Bruce Solomon. The M50 100m was settled in Tony’s favour by 0.08s and with Canterbury’s Wayne Doyle in third just 0.04s behind Bruce, it was a tight contest for the photo finish judge to decide.

The oldest female 1500m runner was Myrtle Rough, contesting the W75 grade. Her time was a championship record but a little short of the national record that she set at the last South Island Champs. At 92.24%, it was the standout 1500m performance.

The M55 1500m put on a good show at the front of their heat. Otago’s Peter Fitzgerald held a good lead over Northland’s Ian Calder. Ian closed up in the final lap and threatened to take the race out but Peter was clearly holding something in reserve and kicked strongly over the final 200m to stretch out to a three second advantage by the finish. In the M65+ race, Ian Carter dominated at the front and just fell short of a 90% age-grade in a race that, from his perspective, was a solo time trial.

The M35-49 race was the opposite. The two M35s, Nige Burgess and Dwight Grieve, kept each other honest all the way round. Both ran 4:26, with the Tasman man (Nige) edging the race by 0.21s.

A good old-fashioned handicap race closed out the Saturday. Harriers will be used to handicap races that use staggered starting times. Track handicaps are something I’ve only ever read about in Jack Lovelock’s diaries and the difference to road or cross country handicaps is everyone starts at the same time but with staggered starting places. While the race was nominally 100m, that does not become the distance you run – depending on your handicap rating. I believe Andrew Stark played the role of handicapper and he did a good job at the front: Tracey Excell beat Nick Bolton on a photo finish.

Danny Baillie (M45) ran the 10000m barefoot at the front of the race with no company, coming agonisingly close to his desired sub-35 time. His finish 35:00.51 is one he was both pleased with – but that 0.51s rankles just slightly. Michael Wray, on injury rehab and under strict coach instructions to run about 10 minutes at a time, amused onlookers unaware of his recuperating status, by stopping for a three minute walk every five laps or so!

Shireen Crumpton’s performance was the best overall run, giving her a near two minute margin of victory over Sally Gibbs. A flair-up of Sally’s back injury forced her to slow down in pain, robbing those watching of the opportunity to see what would have been a good duel between two strong runners.

The final contest between Tony Tan and Bruce Solomon came in the 200m. This time it was Bruce’s turn to win, a margin of 0.06s. For those keeping score, it meant they split the honours 2-2. If you’re looking for a tie-breaker, the sum of their times over the four races has Tony ahead by an aggregate of 0.03s. Given Tony won the 60m and 100m, while Bruce won the 200m and 400m, I’m considering proposing a 160m distance race be added to next year’s programme so we can watch a dead heat!

 

The 2016 NZMA Championships were held at the Caledonian Ground, Dunedin from 26th – 28th February 2016.

Full results can be found on the Results Page.