Alec McNab: Athletes line up for New Zealand Combined Events Championships at Cooks Gardens

With seven events over the two days, it will be a great test for athletes. Photo / Casey Sims

New Zealand’s best all-around track and field athletes are in town over the weekend for the New Zealand Combined Events Championships at Cooks Gardens on Saturday and Sunday.

The men’s decathlon, ten events over two days, and the women’s heptathlon, seven events over two days, are great tests for athletes and a wonderful opportunity for spectators to be close to the combined events action of our leading athletes. As scores gained in each event are cumulative, it is an event that people can pop in for and return to later. There is no gate charge.

There is Whanganui interest, with Maggie Jones defending her Under-20 title won in Auckland last year. Jones, who left Whanganui High School at the end of the year, looks set to significantly better her 4010 points on debut last summer. Jones set two personal bests on Sunday at the International Track Meet in Christchurch, lifting confidence going into this weekend’s heptathlon.

In Christchurch, she set personal bests in the 100-metre hurdles (second in the women’s elite grade with a time of 14.43 seconds) and a significant best in the 200m, running a time of 25.35 in the elite grade, where she finished seventh. Jones will run these two events at the start and end of Saturday, with the hurdles at 9.15am and the 200m six hours later at 4.15pm.

Christina Ryan (Canterbury) will be hoping to make it six consecutive senior women’s heptathlon titles over the weekend, having won her fifth title in Hastings last year when the senior combined events were merged with the track and field championships. Ryan finished just behind Jones in the 100m hurdles on Sunday.

Ryan can expect a strong challenge from last year’s heptathlon silver-medal-winner Maddie Wilson. Wilson had an outstanding meeting in Christchurch on Sunday, with a new personal best in the high jump of 1.82m (the second-highest women’s jump this year) backed up by new bests over hurdles and the 200m, three of the four events that the women face on Saturday.

The talented Angus Lyver from Palmerston North will defend his Under-20 title. Lyver shows outstanding potential, with excellent performances in a wide range of events. He scored 6191 points last year in Auckland, and recent performances in the long jump (7.19m in November), javelin (56.39 at the Sola Power Meeting earlier in the month) and a best 100m time of 10.83 at the Potts Classic in January suggest he is in good form.

It is a welcome back to Whanganui and to Cooks Gardens for Canterbury athlete Max Attwell. Attwell, who hails from Levin, only started athletics in Year 12 at Whanganui Collegiate in 2013. In his final school year in 2014, he entered his first decathlon, taking silver in the Under-20 grade. At his final meeting in Whanganui Collegiate colours, he won the 300m hurdles at Cooks Gardens at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships.

He also ran in the winning 4x100 and 4x400 teams. In the latter, Attwell ran a sub-50-second opening lap, establishing a big team lead that increased to 50 metres by the end of the race. Geordie Beamish, who only last week set the New Zealand 3000-metre record in New York, ran the second leg.

Three months after leaving school, Attwell joined a short tour to California competing in the Arcadia Decathlon in Los Angeles. The tour not only gave him good experience, but stoked an appetite for the sport. In Canterbury, he teamed up with Athletics Combined Events coaching lead Terry Lomax. Lomax also coaches Maddie Wilson and world-class high-jumper and New Zealand record-holder Hamish Kerr.

Attwell has made steady improvement over the following years, and in June, he won the Oceania Championships with a personal best of 7635 points. Attwell had a serious Achilles injury in 2021 soon after winning the 2021 New Zealand Decathlon, which was his third consecutive title.

He didn’t compete in the 2022 championship, but he is looking forward to his return to his old home track and hopes to step on to the decathlon podium for the ninth time (he already has six gold medals, one silver and a bronze).

Cooks Gardens will be a busy place this weekend with Whanganui Girls’ College sports on Friday and the aforementioned combined events starting at 10.15am on Saturday, the day ending with the men’s 400m, which will feature Attwell.

At 5pm, the Whanganui Collegiate Inter House Match starts, ending under lights at 8.50pm. The Inter House, with its action-packed four-hour programme, always is well-supported. The combined events resume at 9.15am on Sunday, rounding off a weekend of athletic action.