Broken arm no barrier for Miller

Oliver Miller completed an impressive double this afternoon at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Track, Field & Road Championships at Waitakere adding the 400m flat title to the 300m hurdles crown he won earlier on Sunday.

Completing with a fibreglass cast on his arm following a scaphoid fracture five weeks ago, which made the option of a traditional blocks start impossible, he had earlier been given a yellow card by officials for moving his foot during a three-point start in the 300m hurdles final.

Nervous to repeat a possible disqualification in the 400m, the 1.94m tall St Peters College student lined up in the 400m with a standing start. Yet although he admitted to feeling "awkward" at having to carry out the rudimentary start he shrugged off the inconvenience to power to victory in 48.55 - some 0.59 clear of the silver medallist, Luke Mercieca of Westlake Boys High School.

"The goal was to complete the double," says Miller, 17, whose long-term ambition is to specialise as a 400m hurdler. "I missed out on gold by 0.01 last year, so it was good to win it."

In the senior girls 400m final, Jessica Hood successfully defended her title by digging deep to overhaul Anna Hayward down the home stretch. The St Pauls Collegiate athlete finished strongly to stop the clock in 56.86 to defeat Hayward (Craighead Diocescan) by 0.16 in a compelling final.

Matthew Manning (St Kentigerns) triumphed in an incident-packed senior boys 1500m final after Nick Moulai, the 3000m gold medallist, who crossed the line second, was disqualified for a shove on Theo Quax, who was upgraded to the silver medal.

Six boys had a chance of a medal with 200m, but Moulais appeared to make contact with Quax with 170m remaining. In the final stages Manning was challenged on his inside by Moulai but then the pair appeared to accidentally clash with the latter bumped on to the infield.

Manning, a former national age-group triathlon champion, who retained his balance to stop the clock in 3:59.56, said: "I am so happy I could execute on the day. I knew if everything came together I could pull it off, but so much can happen on the day in the 1500m.

"I felt terrible (for the clash with Moulai). He tried to come on my inside and we just caught each other. Hes run incredibly well all weekend and Im so pleased for him."

Quax (Macleans) finished 0.30 back from Manning with Dan Hoy of Westlake Boys in bronze in 4:00.43.

It has been some meet for the Goodwin siblings - Kayla and Christopher - as between them they snagged no less than seven medals. Kayla followed up her gold medal success in the junior girls long jump yesterday with gold in the 80m hurdles (11.91) and triple jump (11.50), although she has to settle for silver in the 300m hurdles, recording 46.59 behind Olivia Burnham (Villa Maria) 44.58.

Christopher, 18, added senior boys long and high jump silver medals to his triple jump gold secured yesterday. In the former event, he leapt 7.14m but had to concede defeat to Thomas Rawstrom 7.26m of Tauranga Boys. Meanwhile, despite jumping 1.96m in the high jump, gold went to Isaac Miller-Jose (Wellington College) 1.99m.

There was also an impressive performance in the senior girls hammer as Mellata Tatola of St Marys College hurled the 3kg hammer out to 57.75m to claim victory by more than 10m and come within a metre of her lifetime best performance.

Alex Hyland of Onehunga High School avenged her earlier defeat to Cara Lonergan (Rangitoto College) with victory in the senior girls high jump. Hyland, who won silver in the 100m hurdles behind Lonergan earlier today, dominated the competition winning gold with a best of 1.75m with Lonergan settling for bronze on countback to Imogen Skelton (Samuel Marsden) 1.66m.

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