Athletics: Teen prodigy aims for the top

Merewarihi Vaka - 'Mere' to friends and family - is being picked as a top-class heptathlete. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

>>Remember when Valerie Vili was a teenage athletics prodigy?

A South Auckland schoolgirl is being hailed as New Zealand's new sporting prodigy, smashing records in track and field and winning praise from Olympic gold medallist Valerie Vili's coach.

Thirteen-year-old Merewarihi Vaka - "Mere" to her Aorere College schoolmates - broke long-standing records in the shot-put, discus and 100m in a day of hectic competition at the Counties-Manukau athletic championships in Papakura.

Her 13.41m shot-put was well ahead of the old mark of 11.77m - set 10 years ago - and her winning discus throw of 38.15m was more than 8m ahead of the 16-year-old previous best.

Mere's winning time of 12.62s for the 100m was comfortably ahead of the earlier 12.70s set in 1999.

And if that was not enough, she also won the 200m event.

Mere is now learning from the best. She has had one training session with Vili, New Zealand's world champion shot-putter, and Kirsten Hellier, her coach, has invited her to join their group.


Hellier, Vili's long-time coach and mentor, said Mere could break into top-class athletics.

"She is a very talented athlete and my opinion is she could be a top-class heptathlete," she said.

But although Mere was "technically a nice thrower", it might be too soon to start drawing comparisons with Vili.

"She is not as tall as Val so any comparison is a bit like apples and oranges.

"I don't see her in 10 years as being of the build required to be an international thrower."

The chance to run rather than throw attracted Mere to athletics.

She joined the Papatoetoe Athletic Club as a 5-year-old but did not start throwing for a couple of years.

She has competed in Australia three times - the first as a 10-year-old - and has won "about 100 medals", which quickly outgrew the space on the wall and are now in boxes.

Mere says she sees merit in suggestions her future might lie in multi events.

"At some stage I would like to try a heptathlon," she said. "I have already done high jump and long jump, but I haven't trained for them."

Mere, proudly supported by her Maori mother Aroha and Tongan father John, is one of a sporting trio among the six siblings.

Her brother Mone won the intermediate shot-put and discus double at the championships, and older sister Gabby won the senior shot-put.