New Zealand heptathlete Sarah Cowley laid out her London credentials by producing four personal best performances in reaching the Olympic standard at the Hypo-Meeting in Austria this weekend.
In the most important event for heptathletes outside the Olympics and world championships, Cowley scored 6135 points to finish in 18th place in the seven-event contest, exceeding the standard of 6050 set by the New Zealand Olympic Committee and Athletics New Zealand selectors.
The highlight for the 28-year-old was the high jump, where she jumped a personal best of 1.85 metres then went on to successfully clear 1.88 and 1.91.
With those leaps, Cowley became just the third New Zealand woman to jump more than 1.90 metres and recorded the second best ever jump, behind Tania Dixon who won the Commonwealth Games high jump in 1990.
She also achieved personal bests in the shot put and javelin events. Needing to run near 2 minutes 21 seconds for the final event, the 800 metres, Cowley managed yet another personal best of 2 minutes 15.37 seconds, comfortably beating the standard.
