Girl beats veteran coach

The old and young excelled at Northland's track and field championships held on the new track at Kensington Park on Saturday.
In the combined 300 metres hurdles event, 13-year-old Megan de Klerk held off a challenge from her coach, 61-year-old Chris Portch, with de Klerk taking the women's 16 years title and Portch, the master's 60-64 title.
"It was good to have somebody to push me - it was hard over the last hurdle," de Klerk said.
Portch was pleased with both performances.
"Megan's time was 51.4 seconds so that's 0.3 outside of the time for the national qualifying standard and that's her personal best and fourth win in a row," he said.
While his own performance was just outside 53s, so just short of the record, he said.
Portch also took the masters' 60-64 years 100m hurdles title in a fast 18.9s, eclipsing the mark of the present record.
The men's 16-years javelin produced an exciting contest between the well-performed E-J Nathan from Kaitaia and Whangarei-based rising star, Blayne Smith, resulting in gold for Smith, with 47.45m, and silver for Nathan with 46.89m.
Smith attributed his success to his coach Robin Ball - winner of six NZ senior titles in the 1960s.
"It was pretty good, coaching from Robin Ball helped. I was losing for most of the rounds but in the last round I took his [Ball's] advice and did it correctly and came away with the win," he said.
In the combined women's 800m, Tayla Going's spirited challenge launched against fellow high-performer Melissa Simpson in the final 200m had spectators on their toes, with Going succumbing to Simpson's determined retaliation over the last few metres.
Experience, tactical skill and the benefits of serious training showed as the race in the combined mens and women's 3000m unfolded, with Hatea's Harry Linford and Whangarei's James Edwards vying for the lead in the early stages. But the latter half of the race saw 53-year-old Ian Calder taking over and smoothly extending his lead for gold in the senior Northland title.
Linford sprinted down the final straight just holding off Edwards to take gold in the M16 category, while 13-year-old Imogen Hull ran a well-judged race taking gold in the W16 grade.
In the race for the W55-59 title, 59-year-old Judith Bradshaw timed her run perfectly for victory.
Nancy Bowmar notched up a top performance in the W55-59 high jump, leaping 1.16m to eclipse the height of the previous Northland record.
Other promising performances included Ryan Slater's M19 400m in 54.8s, Joshua Brown's M16 long jump of 6.12m, Riana Phillip's 1:03.0 400m and Rachel Martin's solo run in the W16 2000m steeplechase, in 8m 38.2s.