Athletics: It was a trip down memory lane for Olympian decathlete Brent Newdick in Hastings

Brent Newdick searches for the right mental space before hurling the shot put at the Allan and Sylvia Potts Memorial Classic in Hastings yesterday. Photo/Warren Buckland

Brent Newdick competed in his maiden decathlon event at the defunct Nelson Park track in Hastings almost 16 years ago so it was nostalgic for the New Zealand Olympian to return to the city yesterday to undergo a renaissance of sorts in a bid to secure a ticket to the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in April.

"It also was a my first pole vault here so it was good to be back at the new tracks because it's been a while now getting back into shape again," said Newdick who competed at the annual Allan and Sylvia Potts Memorial Classic at the relatively new HB Regional Sports Park tracks.

The Auckland-based 32-year-old from Papamoa revealed it was his first two to three weeks of competition from an almost three-year, injury-enforced hiatus.

"I was improving every week so that's why we came here in a last-ditch effort to show my performances."

The 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games silver medallist, who finished 12th at the 2012 London Olympics, is gunning for his fourth Commonwealth Games the Gold Coast. He first competed at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, where he just missed out on the podium in fourth place, and his last one was the 2014 Glasgow Games.

Newdick competed in three events yesterday — clearing the pole-vault bar at 4.45m, flinging the shot put to 13.71m and hurling the discus to 44.67m.

It was, he said, the last week for him to show the three national selectors he still had what it takes to make it to the higher echelons.

Unfortunately no decathlons have been staged in the country recently.

"It was not on the programme but what's happened in the couple of weeks is that I've come into good shape so it was a last-minute decision to come down so I got into as many events as I could."

Newdick's goal was to improve his distance, heights and time and he went away relatively satisfied with what he had achieved at the classic.

He has grappled with injury demons for almost 30 months but, mercifully , began this year free of any niggles on the foundation of some good training.

Newdick had picked up a stress fracture of the pubic bone, originating from the adductor tendon, in the summer of 2013-14 before a bone fracture on his foot added to his woes.

"I had two nasty things in a row but they've come right and I'm fit now after they came right about six months ago so now I'm 100 per cent healthy."

Newdick had a chance to jet off to Brisbane to compete in a decathlon early this month and he enjoyed it but had since boosted his statistics in every facet of the 10-event discipline.

"We've now put on some time and performances on the table so we'll just have to stick to our game plan of recovery and keep training so let's see what happens."

While he is in the twilight years of his career, Newdick said he would not have embarked on another campaign if didn't believe he could attain his best.

"My best is 8114 [points] and I believe I can definitely beat that and that would give me a good shot at [2020] Tokyo [Olympics] for my minimum time frame.

"It's definitely in my sights in the next 12 months so I'll just keep building and have a good shot at Tokyo," said the 2013 World University Games bronze medallist.