The early season events through to Christmas including the three regional league matches, the weekly club night was highlighted in last week’s Insight and for school-aged athletes the New Zealand Schools Championships, to be held in Timaru over the weekend December 6-8, provides the highlight of the early season.
The Whanganui area is likely to be represented at the New Zealand Secondary schools by more than 50 athletes, with most coming from Whanganui High School, Whanganui Collegiate School and Nga Tawa.
These events provide an enticing entree for the main course in the early months of 2025, where once again Cooks Gardens will play an important part in the busy start to the new year.
The Pak’nSave Cooks Classic is scheduled for January 25 and is the first major New Zealand track and field meeting of 2025.
The meet, along with the other lower North Island Classics (The Capital and Potts Classic), has been given a lift in that up to five events at each of the three Classics have World Athletics bronze status (above the Challenger status of recent years).
The increased status is important as athletes receive bonus points for performances, so important in terms of qualifying for both the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September for the World Indoor Championships in China in March.
New Zealand athletes performed with distinction in Paris at both the Olympics and the Paralympics in August, returning from the two events with the best record in terms of medals of all New Zealand sports.
However, at this stage, few have qualified for either Indoor or Outdoor Championships in 2025, making our major domestic events more important as athletes both from New Zealand and overseas search for those vital qualifying performances at the start of the international year.
The Lower North Island three Classics not only have bronze status events attached to them but return to the format of all three meets being held within eight days, which is attractive to overseas athletes and domestic athletes who can enjoy the excitement of touring and the guarantee of quality events over a short period.
There will be little rest for Whanganui officials as the Athletics events section of the popular New Zealand Masters Games will be held on the day following Potts Classic (Sunday, February 2) as part of a busy summer at the iconic Cooks Gardens.
We will be hosting one evening of the Manawatū/Whanganui Centre Championships at a Tuesday club night in mid-February.
Local schools will once again be holding their Championships at Cooks Gardens leading up to the Whanganui Secondary Schools Championships in March, showcasing the districts-leading secondary schools athletes.
A team will be selected from these Championships to compete at the North Island Schools Championships scheduled for Porritt Stadium in Hamilton at the start of April.
The Athletics New Zealand Championships are to be held in Dunedin from March 6-9, with the major Sir Graeme Douglas International Meet as part of the lead-up on February 9 in Auckland and the ITM in Christchurch on the week before the New Zealand Championships.
These two meets carry the same bronze status as five chosen events at our own Cooks Classic.
On the eve of a season in which Whanganui again hosts the New Zealand Masters Games, we received the good news of further success for our world record Masters athlete Sally Gibbs in the Sydney Marathon earlier in the month.
Not only did Gibbs win the 60–64 section, but she broke Bernie Portenski’s 2010 New Zealand Record (3:01.30) with her 2-hour 57.26 winning performance.
