Heptathlon silver for Briana Stephenson

Combined Events National Medalists 2024: Aliyah Johnson (Auckland) bronze, Maddie Wilson (Canterbury) gold, Briana Stephenson (Hawke’s Bay/Gisborne) silver.

Former Waipukurau athlete Briana Stephenson, 24, has moved a little closer to home. She’s changed back to her original Hawke’s Bay/Gisborne colours where it all began, although she’ll continue to train out of Auckland focusing on women’s heptathlon.

Leading into the Combined Events Nationals, held in Dunedin recently, Briana had shown great form winning the 100m hurdles at the Wellington Capital Classic, then also winning the javelin at the Hamilton Porritt Classic, with a huge PB, 38.01m.

Dunedin turned on two great days of weather and competition. Day 1 started with an explosive 100m hurdles effort, 13.93s (wind 0.8). Unfortunately hitting the 8th hurdle of 10 slowed her down briefly. She now moves into NZ #1 for this event, for now.

Standing at 1.62m tall Briana leaped to a new high jump PB, 1.77m. The 15cm height improvements are almost half of the world record which stands at 31cm, athlete’s height to personal best jump.

Briana’s shotput is undergoing technical improvements and is not quite there yet.

Day 1 finished with the 200m where Briana ran a season-best 24.23s (wind 2.8), to blitz the field. She had achieved a day 1 PB and was sitting in second place.

Day 2 started with long jump and after doing two huge no jumps, Briana had to be a bit more passive on her final attempt, so as not to zero out on points. 5.71m (wind 0.2) was safe and secure, and also a legal season best.

In javelin, 34.80m wasn’t quite what she was after.

The 800m is always last. Briana battled it out with the overall eventual winner but came from behind in a thrilling race, to win it in style. 2:15.06 smashed her previous PB of 2:19.79. She had achieved a day 2 PB.

The competition’s 5619 overall points for Briana was an 85-point PB, after six heptathlons within her first year at it. She has equalled the senior women’s high jump record, 1.77m, for Hawke’s Bay/Gisborne and blown away the previous heptathlon record for the same region. She temporarily now sits at #2 in NZ during 2024 and #9 overall for NZ women’s heptathlon.

The gold medal went to former Gisborne girl and Christchurch-based athlete, Maddie Wilson, 21, who is into her 6th season of heptathlon. Her massive winning score of 5990 points is the best seen for many years in NZ.

Both athletes have made NZ qualification standards for the Oceania Area Champs, Fiji, in June. And they’ll be performing in Adelaide in April at the Australian Athletics Champs.