Best all-round athletes converge on Whanganui

New Zealand's best all-round athletes will be in Whanganui this weekend for the New Zealand Combined Events Championships.

The championships, returning to the city after a successful event in 2016, feature the decathlon championships for men and the heptathlon for women.

The men's decathlon will be a highlight of the two days.

Former Whanganui athlete Max Attwell, now representing Canterbury, defends his title won last year in Dunedin. Attwell, who has a personal best of 6975 points, will be looking to not only score substantially over 7000 points and put real pressure on New Zealand Olympian Brent Newdick who has returned to the sport after an injury-forced break.

Newdick, who has won the national title a total of seven times between 2005 and 2016, has twice returned from World University Games with medals - silver in 2009 and bronze two years later. He finished a highly creditable 12th at the London Olympics in 2012 and has a personal best of 8114 points. Last week he scored 7144 at the Australian Championships which sets up an excellent battle with Attwell for the title.

2017 Junior champion Felix McDonald from Otago will also be in the mix, contesting his first senior tile.

Double Japanese Olympian Keisake Ushiro, who competed two years ago at Cooks Gardens in the 2016 event makes a return to the River City. At his best he has scored over 8300 points and is very much a crowd favourite.

Palmerston North athlete Ariana Blackwood defends her women's title with challenges coming from Christina Ryan (Canterbury) and Natalie Booth (Auckland).

Matthew Aucamp and Jared Neighbours will step up from Under 18 medallists last year to try to take home the Under 20 title this year, while the Under 20 women's title will be contested by local Whanganui athlete Lexi Maples, second last year, with strong challenges coming from Hayley Marx (Auckland) and Allesandra MacDonald (Waikato BoP).

The Under 18 heptathlon title is expected to be retained by Kayla Goodwin (Waikato BOP) while Shaun Woodd (Southland) could prevail in the Under 18 decathlon.

The championships programme starts at 9am on both Saturday and Sunday at Whanganui's Cooks Gardens.

Meanwhile, in Inglewood, the New Zealand 10,000m championships will be decided on Saturday evening.

Craig Lautenslager, the current national half marathon and cross country champion will go in as favourite for the men's title. The Nelson athlete has an impressive best over 10,000m of 29:00.59 set in March last year while on scholarship in the USA. Two weeks ago he finished second in a sprint finish at the national 3000m championships in Hamilton.

Lautenslager's main challengers will be Jono Jackson and Ciaran Faherty from Auckland, Hirotaka Tanimoto from Wellington and Michael Voss (Waikato BoP).

The women's race looks like a battle between the evergreen Sally Gibbs from Waikato BoP and Alannah Van Hout from Auckland.

- This story has been automatically published using a media release from Athletics New Zealand