A rare dead heat in the 1500 metres at the national athletics championships in Dunedin between Sam Tanner, 24, and Sam Ruthe, 15.
Video / AthleticsNZ
Four Hastings athletes have pulled off one of Hawke’s Bay’s biggest athletics relay successes by winning the senior women’s 4x100m at the 2025 Jennian Homes New Zealand Track and Field Championships in Dunedin.
Representing the Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay centre on the second day of the championships, which started on Thursday, the team of Amponsaa Tabi-Amponsah, Kiana Pohe, Briana Stephenson and Georgia Hulls ran the late-afternoon Friday event in 46.48 seconds, more than 10m clear of runners-up Otago (48.34s).
Pre-race favourite Canterbury were disqualified for a baton change out of zone, at a time when they were struggling to keep in touch with the Bay.
“They would have come third, but officials don’t take into account placing when doing disqualifications [in case it would affect qualifications or records etc in another situation]” Hulls said.
“It’s a shame, always nicer to have a full podium.”
The team that won Hawke's Bay Poverty Bay's first national Senior women's 4x100m relay title since 1939, at the New Zealand track and field championships in Dunedin. Briana Stephenson (left), Kiana Pohe, under 20 sprinter Amponsaa Tabi-Amponsah and Georgia Hulls.
In an event dominated over the years by the bigger centres, it was the HBPB centre’s first win in the event since three successes in 1935, 1936, and 1939, under the imperial distance of 4x110 yards.
While the national record is 43.79s, run by a New Zealand team quartet including Hulls and Taranaki sprint queen Zoe Hobbs in 2022, it was one of the fastest women’s 4x100m relays in the history of the championships, contested by provincial or club teams, despite there being just three starters.
It was the fastest since Auckland, in one of six wins in the event in the past decade, clocked 45.71s four years ago.
It was a sixth national title for Hulls, but ill health prevented her from defending the 200m title she has won four times, and at which she has the second quickest senior women’s time in New Zealand athletics history.
Hawke's Bay sprinter Georgia Hulls, who ran the last leg of the Hawke's Bay Poverty Bay senior women's 4x100m relay national title win in Dunedin at the weekend, the four-times 200m champion's sixth national title. Photo / Supplied
Unwell beforehand, she told Hawke’s Bay Today: “I was pretty sure that I was going to scratch the others before, but didn’t do it until after. I ran well in the relay which gave me a bit of hope, but it took a lot out of me so decided to call it before it got any worse.”
A few minutes earlier on Friday, a HBPB team of Ryan Shotter, Joshua Adegoke, Liam Kilby, and Rylan Noome clocked 41.75s for third in the senior men’s event, won by Otago in 40.99s.
Later, Pohe ran 12.12s for sixth in the senior women’s 100m final won by Zoe Hobbs in 11.11s. Pohe had run a personal best of 12.02s four weeks earlier, and had scraped into the weekend’s final in a 12.16s eighth place.
In the men’s under-20 sprint finals Noome ran 10.65s at 100m and 21.57m at 200m to finish second to Aucklander Kadin Taylor (personal bests of 10.5s and 21.32s) while Tabi-Amponsah also reached the final of the under-20 women’s 200m.
Stephenson, focusing her season on the multi-discipline heptathlon, produced two other medal-winning performances, for second in the senior women’s 100m hurdles, running 13.3s and beaten only by Japan entry Rei Honda (13.21s), and third in the senior women’s high jump with a personal best of 1.77m. She was also fourth in the long jump.
The withdrawal of Jacko Gill from the senior men’s shot put put paid to a clash with hot favourite Tom Walsh, who duly won with a throw of 21.24m, but opened a door for Christchurch-based Hastings thrower Nick Palmer who was comfortably second with a 19.81m effort at his first attempt, which he was unable to better in five more throws.
The other medal-winning performances for HBPB athletes were Alex West’s second placing in the under-20 men’s 3000m steeplechase, and Jack Adams’ men’s open para double of a win in the shot put (10.12m) and second placing in the javelin (31.97m).
Former Hawke’s Bay runner Laura Nagel, competing for North Harbour Bays, added to a string of national middle-distance titles with wins in the senior women’s 5000m and 1500m, and Canterbury-based William Little, son of Wairoa Mayor Craig Little, was third in the men’s 5000m.
