The New Zealand Track and Field season has two distinct halves.
Prior to Christmas in our region, we have the three major Regional League Meetings, providing good early season opportunities for seniors and vital preparation for school-age athletes preparing for the 49th New Zealand Schools Championships in Inglewood.
From January the focus is on the Classic Meets leading to the Athletics New Zealand Championships in Wellington early in March.
On Monday our committee highlighted that it is going to be a busy year for both local athletes and officials.
Cooks Gardens will be an especially busy venue in the early part of the year.
New Zealand's largest track and field meeting, the North Island Colgate Games, comes to Cooks Gardens in January transferred from Palmerston North because of a clash with other events.
The Colgate Games which are the sport's oldest, longest continuous sponsorship annually brings in excess of 1200 young athletes and many more parents and supporters.
Over many decades the North Island Colgate has been part of family holidays and provided a massive economic benefit to host venue communities.
The local officials and the many visiting officials have only three weeks until they will be back for the PAK'nSAVE Cooks Classic scheduled for Saturday, January 28 with the major participation Sir Peter Snell Mile Challenge the following day.
The Challenge allows runners and walkers of all ages and abilities to complete a mile on the World Athletics Heritage venue where Sir Peter Snell so famously broke the World Mile Record.
Last year the Challenge was cancelled because of Covid-19 restrictions but we look forward to an even bigger and better event in January.
The final makeup of the Cooks Classic and the status of the meet will be announced later this month after confirmation of the events to be held and the status of The Classic from World Athletics through Oceania and Athletics New Zealand.
We certainly look forward to the opportunity of overseas athletes once again able to compete at Cooks Gardens.
Local officials have little time to recover as only a week after the Classic, the New Zealand Masters Athletics will be held at Cooks Gardens.
This will be a busy, full day starting at 9am on Sunday, February 5 and ending in the evening.
At the last Masters, events were held in two sessions on one day with the balance on a later evening.
We have followed the Dunedin model and the track and field over one day including an evening session.
Our neighbours in Palmerston North are grateful that we have managed to take over the Colgate Games and have recognised the large workload for Whanganui and have agreed to host the middle November Regional Meet in November to lighten our load.
As a club, we are aware that our athletes face one more event to travel for and are seeking to support travel for our athletes.
The local senior club will start on Tuesday, October 18 with our C programme.
The first club night will, as in the past, be run in conjunction with rugby where hopefully the Butcher Boys will be preparing for the Meads Final at the weekend.
The children's section commences on October 31 (to be confirmed).
The regular senior club nights will be held on Tuesdays into December recommencing in the New Year.
The programmes which follow our established A, B and C programmes are already posted on our website.
The Children's section will again be run on Monday afternoons after school and early evening.
The popular Regional Leagues start in Hastings on October 29 with subsequent meets in Palmerston North on November 12 and Masterton on November 26.
The league provides excellent early competition for Senior athletes and a great build-up for school-age athletes for New Zealand Schools in December.
We look forward to a busy season of major events and our regular school and club activities.
