Alec McNab: What a new track means for Cooks Gardens

The Cooks Gardens track will be resurfaced this year.

Alec McNab is Athletics Wanganui president

OPINION

I might be a little biased, but I firmly believe that Cooks Gardens is the best athletics venue in New Zealand and would be hard to be bettered anywhere in the world.

Cooks Gardens, with its central position in the city right in the heart of the CBD, Is unique.

It is a great venue for competition and training (they do not always go together).

It is wonderful for spectators with covered seating on both sides. The track layout allows sprint races to be run with a tailwind on either straight which is a real bonus for leading sprinters as they can at least guarantee a tailwind even though in New Zealand’s windy climate it may be above the allowable limit.

Australian sprinter Jake Doran was grateful in January as he rode a tailwind of 2 metres/second (right on the legal limit) to snatch the long-standing Cooks Gardens stadium record and its attractive prize bonus.

His 100m was one of the few legal wins on the early part of that evening producing a record that would have been impossible on the home straight.

We can add the bespoke photo finish and media room, the restaurant/function centre and the corporate boxes that make Cooks Gardens a world-class venue and worthy of World Athletics heritage plaques not only in recognition of both the venue and Sir Peter Snell’s famous World Record set in 1962.

It was good news to have last week’s confirmation that Cooks Gardens will be resurfaced starting next month. It had been an anxious wait for this final confirmation.

It is a huge asset we already have but if not maintained it would be something we would lose as a city and a community.

At the end of last year, we were given a special extension by World Athletics to run the Pak’nSave Cooks Classic in January.

This extension of the certificate was until the end of April this year and Cooks Gardens has now expired therefore does not have a certificate to hold major athletics meetings.

It is rather like owning an expensive vehicle with an expired Warrant of Fitness. That vehicle then is unable to be used and loses its value. Often some expenditure is then required to get the vehicle back on the road and extend its life.

As with the last resurfacing of Cooks Gardens we are fortunate that the track has been well looked after, helped by an equitable climate, and does not show the level of wear apparent on other tracks of similar age around the country.

This will have helped in reducing the cost of the resurfacing exercise. Although Cooks Gardens is showing only a few signs of wear deterioration, it can set in quickly, adding significantly to cost when the resurfacing is undertaken. Worn tracks also lead to many injured athletes.

We are delighted with both the consultation process and the specifications of the resurfaced track. We have confidence that the project is in very good hands.

We appreciate that there will be some disruption to our programme during the resurfacing and the club will plan around it for the small number of affected club nights in late November and early December.

The good news that the resurfacing and the vital international certification will be completed before the Pak’ n Save Cooks Classic on January 25 and for the New Zealand Masters Games eight days later.

There is already increased urgency in training and the new faster surface will put a spring in athletes’ steps. Our opening is less than a fortnight away with children on October 14 and the seniors the following day.

Leading athletes not only in Whanganui will be excited about the resurfacing and along with the raising of status of the meet with bronze status events in the programme should add impetus to the Cooks Classic.

Within 24 hours of the announcement on World Athletics we had an entry from Canadian International Hammer thrower Jillian Weir who will be in a strong field that also sees Lexi Maples return home from Los Angeles for the Classic.

Maples has made impressive progress over the last USA season with more than five metres added to her personal best and she hopes to continue where she left off at Cooks Gardens at the start of the new year.

Maples’ Ohakea based brother Jonathan who won his first international representation in June at the Oceania Championships, will compete in the first event of the Cooks Classic on the new track over 400m hurdles with a very real chance of breaking the stadium record.