KEY POINTS:
Valerie Vili showed she is on track for Olympic glory in winning her eighth straight New Zealand shot put title at Mt Smart Stadium last night.
The world outdoor and world indoor champion was pleased with her winning performance of 20.00m.
"Yes very happy with 20.00m and a back up throw of 19.99m, It was consistent right through the competition," said Vili.
"This meeting was not targeted to come out with a big throw.
"But what a way to finish the season with a throw of 20m at your nationals," she added.
Vili's New Zealand resident record is 20.20m and her national record set in winning the world title in Osaka last year is 20.54m.
This was her last competition in New Zealand before Beijing.
"It is going to be plenty busy over the next few months. I'm here for a month and then a training camp in Australia followed by competition in Beijing in May before coming back here for training before returning to Beijing," said Vili.
Kimberley Smith ran a solo 15m 19.61s to win the women's 5000m title. Smith showed her class circling the track well clear of the rest of the field.
"It was pretty windy out there, I wanted to go at 10km pace, I didn't want to run too fast as I have a 10km race in the States in a month's time," she said.
"It was just a nice hard effort before that."
Rowan Baird of Auckland was second in 16min 09.29sec.
Triathlete Samantha Warriner, already assured of a place at the Beijing Olympics, stepped on to the track for the fourth time this year and ran a personal best by 30s to finish third in 16m 16.25s.
Smith, who finished fifth over 10,000m at the world championships, hadn't eased up her 160km a week training load for last night's race.
She stretched an impressive lead with every lap, clocking out 74-75s laps with monotonous regularity.
There was an upset in the men's 100m final with Chris Donaldson storming through to win from Otago teammate Todd Mansfield and pre-race favourite James Dolphin. Donaldson recorded 10.79s, to Mansfield's 10.80s and Dolphin 10.81s.
"I gave it everything, everything I had was left on that track," said Donaldson.
"Last year James and I dead heated, I don't have too many titles left in me and I was trying to get that last title, with retirement looming."
