Paine tactics hit stride

A new race plan worked well for crack Masterton middle distance athlete Stevie Paine when she won the girls' 16 years 800m title on the first day of the Wellington track and field championships at Newtown Park in Wellington last weekend.
Under instructions from coach Mark Harris, Paine forsook her usual tactics of going to the front early and then basically running her rivals off their feet.
This time, she stayed just off the pace until going into the last 300m, where she accelerated to the lead and drew away to win comfortably in 2m 22.76s.
Harris said the new plan was seen as necessary as Paine built up for a tilt at the Australian junior championships in Sydney next month as the quality of opposition there meant tactical nous could play a huge part in the end result.
"Against the top runners, you have to have more than one tactic up your sleeve and that's where the focus for Stevie is now," Harris said. "It's the old story of not placing all your eggs in the one basket."
Four other Wairarapa track athletes will accompany Paine and Harris to Sydney and they all made their mark at Newtown Park as well.
Laura McKenna won the girls' 16 years 100m in a slick 12.94s, outside her personal best time of 12.56s but faster than what she was running at the corresponding time last year.
"It was a good run, just what we wanted at this stage of her preparation," Harris said of McKenna.
Molly Creagh, who has starred over 400m, was fifth behind McKenna in 13.73s, an impressive effort considering she was competing over a distance well short of her best.
Tom Quinn and Joel Farley contested the boys' 16 years 800m and they finished second and third, Quinn clocking 2m 04.53s and Farley 2m 06.24s.
"The big thing for them was to finish off the race strongly and they did exactly that," Harris said.
The girls' 16 years 100m at the Wellington championships was dominated by Wairarapa-based sprinters, with Sian Chapman placing second to McKenna in 13.13s and Mikayla Pearson fourth in 13.57s.
Dhruv Raman was fourth in the boys' 16 years 100m in 12.18s, William Simpson fifth in the boys' 19 years 100m in 11.72s and George Hewitt won the athletes with a disability 100m in 20.98s.
Fourth in the boys' 16 years 800m was Kurtis Paine in 2m 07.25s, with Edward Hewitt two places back. Courtnay Fafeita, Tim Girling-McLean and Josh Greig all won gold in field events, Fafeita in the girls' 19 years shot put with a put of 9.21m and the hammer throw with 36.66m, Girling-McLean in the boys' 16 years shot put with a put of 14.61m and Greig in the men's 19 years shot put (13.41m) and hammer throw (26.09m).
Second in the men's 19 years shot put was Jerry Peseta (12.87m) and third was Dennis Peseta (10.10m), while Mariah Taylor was second in the girls' 16 years hammer throw with a best effort of 27.02m.