Whangarei runner Ryan Slater is emerging as a young athlete to watch at the Athletic New Zealand Championships in Christchurch in March.
Competing in an interprovincial meet at Waitakere Stadium on Saturday, Slater led for the first 400m of the U18-17 800m. Running right on target, in accordance with coach Ian
Babe's instructions, Slater hit the halfway point in 58sec and held on to take gold, in a personal best time of 2:03.25.
But organisers had opened his race up to senior men as well as juniors and in the combined field Slater took silver, just 3sec behind the winner.
Although disappointed with his time, Slater was encouraged by his racing form at this early stage of his preparation.
"I was hoping to go a bit quicker - the qualifying time for the Nationals is 2:02, so I was just outside that," Slater said.
He is looking forward to completing his training on Northland's new all-weather track over the next two months and can confidently expect faster times.
Overall, Northland's athletes excelled in the competition against Auckland, Counties-Manukau, North Harbour, Taranaki, Waikato and Manawatu, with the small team finishing a promising fourth.
Riana Phillips, who has already qualified for the Nationals in Christchurch, won gold in the Girls' U-14 high jump with a leap of 1.56m and took silver in the 400m.
David Nair scored gold in the B-16 100m in 12.37 and bronze in the 200m, while Paul Carter won the B-16 800m in 2:09.73 and placed third in the 100m.
Carter's younger brother Ethan also shone, taking silver in B14-15 1500m, in 4:41.
And to cap off the day, David Nair, Paul Carter, Ryan Carter, Tyler Edwards and Ryan Slater came home for silver in the medley relay.
