Whangarei's young athletes showed their class by winning four 800m races and out-performing their Auckland rivals at the Waitakere club's Junior meeting on Saturday. Running in grades according to their ages, all four gave top performances with 14-year-old Ethan Carter, running in LJ Hooker Athletic colours, standing out as the mostrapidly improving youngster. In the Boys' 14-years age grade, Carter took command from the start. "I went out strong and led all the way - it felt like there was somebody behind me with 300m to go, but with 200m to go, I started pulling away - when I heard the time I was stoked," Carter said. He lopped a massive six seconds off his PB (personal best), stopping the watches in 2:10, only four seconds short of the 2m 6s standard required for entry to the 16 year-olds' 800m at the New Zealand Championships. Running her first competitive 800m, Riana Phillips showed her talent in the G14 event with an impressive 2:32 win by heading off Rachel Martin - another of Whangarei's talented runners - who ran a PB of 2:37.8 for silver. Others to showcase Whangarei's talent over 800m were Imogen Hull, who cleaned-up the G12 event, with a personal best of 2:38.9 and Tayla Going who took gold in the W13 event in 2:29. As well as taking gold in the 800m, Phillips demonstrated top form in the G14 high jump, taking gold with a PB height of 1.59m - setting a new Northland age group record in the process. Ten-year-old Scott Gregory also turned in a top performance with an excellent win in the B10 100m. Later in the day, at the Senior Hot Meet in the afternoon, Ryan Slater capped off Whangarei's successes with an impressive 2:02.2s in the A Grade M19 800m - missing out on a place but meeting the qualifying standard for the NZ Championships.
