Athletics: Frankie flashes home again

By Peter Jessup

If you saw the flash from Auckland's North Shore last night and were wondering, it was Namibian Frankie Fredericks blitzing the 100m field in the Robin Tait Classic meeting.

Fredericks headed off strong starts out of the blocks from Kiwis Chris Donaldson and Gus Nketia and took the lead after about 10 strides, never to be headed.

But Donaldson's pace at the end in finishing in 10.43s, a body-width behind Fredericks' 10.28s, again confirmed his international class. Running into a headwind of 0.6m a second (records do not count after 2m/s), the Otago sprinter was not too far away from his personal best of 10.17s.

Donaldson said he went in expecting to be second - a brave call in a field including Australian Matt Shirvington and Chilean Sebastian Keitel - and declared himself very happy with his result.

"I'm racing well. I wanted to push Frankie and I did - it was good fun." So can a white man run under the magical 10 seconds? "One day," he said. "I'm on target."

Fredericks was his usual crowd-pleasing self. "I'm not as sharp as I thought I was," he said, taking the microphone to tell the crowd he wanted to run around 10.10s. "But if you're happy, I'm happy."

They responded with a wild cheer for the fastest time ever run at the Tait, beating world record holder Donovan Bailey's 10.32s in 1998. "I didn't come here to sightsee," Fredericks said.

The other major achiever among the locals was Shaun Farrell, who turned the power on in the straight to take the men's 800m, putting a good gap on Kenyan Patrick Nduriri. He had first been challenged by fellow Kiwi Hamish Christensen 150m out from the line.

"Hamish gave me a scare but I still had some gas left. I wasn't looking for a good time, I just wanted to win. It's given me confidence for the international meets coming up," he said of competition to come in Australia.

The Kenyans set the pace in the men's 3000m, and the crowd, disappointing at around 4000, responded to the toothy smiles of the winner, Luke Kipkosgei, and second placegetter, Ben Maiyo, with some of the most enthusiastic applause of the night as they sprint-finished.

The 1994 Commonwealth Games women's 1500m champion, Kelly Holmes, was beaten into second by Kenyan Faith Makaria, the time of 4m17.37s dragging Kiwi teenager Demelza Murrihy to a creditable fifth in 4m 23.22s.

Earlier, Commonwealth Games hero Craig Barrett went a fast second to Australian Nick Ahern in the 5km walk and declared himself satisfied with an effort that has him well on track for his next international competition.

Ahern went the 12 laps in 19m 24.71s, chopping 27s off the New Zealand record he set at this meet last year, while Barrett's 19m 48.21 was just 14s outside his personal best.

In the women's pole vault, Jenni Dryburgh was unable to meet or better the New Zealand record of 4.05m she set at Hamilton last week, making 4m with ease then failing three times at 4.10m.

That left world record-holder Australian Emma George and Belarussian Tatiana Grigorieva to fight out first place, Grigorieva bowing out at 4.3m and George completing 4.4m before failing at 4.5, just 900mm off her best and 350mm better than she managed at the Porritt Classic last week.

Pictured: Frankie Fredericks finishes the race ahead of New Zealander Chris Donaldson (second from right).HERALD PICTURE / PAUL ESTCOURT