21 year old Zoe Hobbs recently broke the New Zealand residents 100m record of 11.52s with a personal best of 11.37
Olympic Games and World Championships hopefuls from at least five countries are expected to compete alongside New Zealand’s best in the 25th Potts Classic in Hastings later this month.
Meeting director Richard Potts says “a lot of athletes have knocked on our door” for the first of a series of 11 World Continental meets across Australasia in January-March.
About 10 per cent of all entries for the January 16 pre-Classic meet and the Classic on January 20 at the Mitre 10 Regional Sports Park’s William Nelson athletics precinct are from overseas.
It could be the classic’s most international programme since it was founded in 2000 to commemorate middle distance runner and coach Sylvia Potts ONZM, who died the previous year.
Former Hawke's Bay Olympian Richard Potts says “a lot of athletes have knocked on our door” for the pending Potts Classic in Hastings. Photo / NZME
It now also commemorates coach and husband Allan Potts ONZM, who died in 2014, and is classified as a World Athletics Continental Tour Challenger Event and Area Permit Meet, important for athletes targeting qualification for the Olympics in Paris on July 26-August 11, the World Under-20 athletics championships in Lima, Peru, on August 27-31, and global ranking points.
Richard Potts says that despite the presence of athletes from Australia, England, France, Japan and Cameroon, the star attraction remains 26-year New Zealand sprinter Zoe Hobbs, New Zealand’s first female to run under 11 seconds for 100 metres and who will be matched with Australian sprinter and former lifesaver and World beach sprint champion Bree Masters, 28.
It has been on the Hastings track that she has taken some of her biggest steps into international class, in the 2022 Potts Classic cutting six seconds off the nation women’s 100 metres record with a time of 11.21sec, and returning a few weeks later to a Hawke’s Bay Saturday meet for a successful crack at the national all-comers record, and Olympic Games and World Championships qualifying by cutting the dash in 11.15sec.
Zoe Hobbs in the La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, 100 metres last July when she set a new New Zealand record and became the first New Zealand female to run the dash in an official time under 11 seconds.
It was 17 months later that Auckland-based Hobbs, from Stratford, punched 10.96sec in a heat in Switzerland to break her own national record.
Also lining up in the 100 metres in Hastings will be Georgia Hulls, from Hawke’s Bay but for training purposes now based in Auckland, and who has a personal best of 11.44sec, although her target event is the 200m.
Another feature on the track will be the athlete goodwill of 23-year-old Sam Tanner, of Tauranga, beaming in-on a dream to emulate New Zealand Olympic Games 1500 metres gold medallists Jack Lovelock (1936), Peter Snell (1964) and John Walker (1976), with a PB of 3min 31.34sec, quicker than any of them and run in finishing sixth at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in England, quicker than the 3m:32.2s World Record Tanzanian Filbert Bayi ran in beating Walker in the 1974 Commonwealth Games final in Christchurch, and second-only to durable Kiwi, 2006 gold Melbourne Commonwealth Games gold medallist and two-times Olympics medallist Nick Willis, who has the New Zealand record of 3min 29.66sec.
In Hastings, Tanner will be pacemaker in the aspirations of current national men’s 800 metres champion James Preston, of Wellington, as he tries to beat a personal best of 1min 45.3sec, and secure an early Olympics qualifying time.
The same race is expected to also field New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships track stars James Ford and Thomas Cowan, both of Auckland.
Napier runner Holly Manning, who ran a personal best 800 metres of 2min 3.76s in winning a national title in Hastings in March 2022 will defend her Potts Classic title in a field including former Taradale High School pupil and national titles winner Laura Nagel, New Zealand-born, Australia-based Jemima Tennekoon, who has a PB of 2m 8.27s, run in Queensland last March.
There will also be overseas interest in the women’s discus with the appearance of Nora Monie, of Cameroon and Australian teenager Charlize Goody in the field with 19-year-old New Zealand Junior World Championships representative Natalia Rankin-Chitar, of Auckland, whose personal best of 51.79m was thrown at the Classic last year.
The pole vaults have some intrigue during the week, with the men’s event attracting British champion Charlie Myers and Australian athletes Lachlan Burns and 20-year-old Liam Georgipoulos, and the women’s field including Japan champion Misaki Morota.
Another returning with a record-breaking history at the park is Canterbury hammer-thrower Lauren Bruce, who at an especially-staged bid in September 2020 set new New Zealand and Oceania women’s records with a throw of 73.47m.
There’s plenty of opportunity also for other Hawke’s Bay athletes in what is starting to shape as a potential golden era for New Zealand athletics across a range of track and field events.
Others entered include sprinters national junior and secondary schools champion Rylan Noome, Pacific Games representative Ryan Shotter and 2019 national secondary schools champion Joshua Adegoke, all from Napier Boys’ High School in recent years, and Havelock North High School pupil Zita Meo, who won the Junior girls 400 metres at the national schools championships last month.
The Potts Classic is the first of five World Athletics Continental Tour events in New Zealand, followed by the Cooks Classic in Whanganui on January 27, Capital Classic in Wellington on February 2, an international meeting in Christchurch on February 24, and the Sir Graeme Douglas Memorial Track Classic in Auckland on March 10.
The New Zealand track and field championshps will be held in Wellington on March 14-17.
