Two Hawke's Bay stars confirmed for world athletics

Three regular stars of top 2020-2022 Hastings track meetings and now off to the World championships - from left, in 2020, Rosie Elliott, Zoe Hobbs, and Hawke's Bay sprinter Georgia Hulls. Photo / NZME

Hawke's Bay runners Georgia Hulls and Geordie Beamish have been both confirmed as members of New Zealand's biggest-ever World Athletics champion team, less than a fortnight before the 2022 events start in the US.

Turning 23 at the end of next month, Hulls will run the 200 metres after winning with a personal best run time of 23.17 seconds at the Australian Track and Field Championships in Sydney on April 2.

The 25-year-old Beamish runs the 5000 metres having slashed his own personal best down by almost 18 seconds - this amongst a series of startling performances over the last 18 months in one of the best eras ever for New Zealand athletics prospects.

Starting the year with a PB of 13 minutes and 36.71 seconds, recorded in 2021, Beamish ran 13:29.88 in May at the Championships venue in Eugene, Oregon. He knocked another 10 seconds off with a 13:19.09 Diamond League run at State Charlety, Paris, on June 18.

Geordie Beamish (No 879) running his New Zealand inoor 5000 metres record in the US last December. Photo / Jared Lautenslager

Last December in Boston, Massachusetts, he ran a New Zealand indoor 5000 metres record of 13:12.53.

Among his opposition in Eugene will be teammate Hamish Carson, who in May recorded a PB of 13:17.27 in Huelva, Spain, to climb to number six on the all-time New Zealand rankings.

Athletics New Zealand quoted Hulls as saying: "I am incredibly proud and inspired to be wearing a senior Black Singlet for the first time. It is unbelievably exciting to compete in Tracktown USA and I am hoping the magic of Hayward Field will rub off on me and propel me to a special performance."

The championships in Oregon are being held on July 15-24, and are followed by the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, on July 28 - August 8.

Athletics New Zealand has named a team of 11 women and nine men for the World Championship, two more than its previous record of 18 in 1997, and a significant rise on the 13-strong team which competed at the at the World Championship in Doha, Qatar, in 2019.

In May, it named a squad of 18, of whom 11 selections were in condition upon the meeting of standards by late June. Of them, nine succeeded, along with four others after meeting entry requirements on the "Road to Oregon."