Athletics: Reflections on a demanding season for Whanganui athletes

Walker Lucas Martin is one of the leading Whanganui athletes this season. Photo / Anna Dai

Christmas and New Year is a period of reflection on the year that is just about over and looking towards the year ahead.

Covid-19 had a major effect on track and field throughout the 2021-22 season. The 2021 New Zealand Secondary School Championships had been cancelled but returned to the Taranaki venue this month for the 2022 edition.

As the country moved into the orange traffic light system at the end of last year, there was hope that, at least for the vaccinated athletes, there might be a degree of normality. Then Omicron struck just six days before the Pak’nSave Cooks Classic in January and the country moved to the red light setting.

The six days leading to the Cooks Classic were frenetic and demanding for organisers. Many athletic details had to take a back seat as we struggled to meet ever-changing regulations and protocols and demands of so many different masters. It meant a changed programme run in three sections. The resulting meet was excellent with seven stadium records in an event that ranked well with World Athletics. Spectators were the one missing ingredient. Hopefully, this year’s edition on January 28 will be blessed with the good weather we experienced this year but, unlike this year, a full grandstand.

The Athletics New Zealand Championships were also held under similar spectator-less arrangements in March, with the event held over four days with no mixing between grades. As a member of team management, we waved goodbye to our younger athletes and then welcomed our older athletes on their departure — strange times. The championship saw success from local athletes that I will reflect on later.

Unlike many districts, we were able to conduct our Secondary Schools Championships in five separate event groupings: four sections on a Tuesday through the day and at Club Night in the evening with a session on a separate Tuesday Club Night. There was, however, no North Island Schools for successful athletes as the event in Palmerston North at the start of April was cancelled. The Whanganui Schools was the first athletic event in New Zealand to allow unvaccinated athletes to compete as that restriction was lifted at midnight the day before the championships at secondary school level.

The New Zealand Championships had local success with Maggie Jones winning her 400m hurdles at under-20 level, an event in which Paige Cromarty secured silver. The long hurdles produced a Whanganui double with Jono Maples winning his maiden senior title. Jones went on to take silver in the 100m hurdles. Louise Brabyn won the under-18 steeples and took bronze over 3000m, both giving an early indication of later success for Jones and Brabyn.

Brabyn was joined by Amy McHardy and Daniel Sinclair in the New Zealand Schools Cross Country Team following their success at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country in Nelson. In June, McHardy and Brabyn had been part of the Whanganui Collegiate Girls’ team that took silver in both the three and six-to-score team events while Sinclair was in the Collegiate Senior Boys’ six-to-score silver medal team.

The 2022-23 season approaches its halfway point. The early emphasis at club level has been the Regional League and, at school level, the league provided great preparation for the New Zealand Secondary Schools held in Inglewood in early December.

A lot lies ahead with a busy January, starting the first weekend with the Colgate Games, which has almost 1100 entries. Cooks Gardens hosts the event starting on Friday, January 6, and by the month’s end will have seen the Cooks Classic and the Sir Peter Snell mile challenge (reviewed next week).

As indicated over the past fortnight, Whanganui athletes did well at the New Zealand Secondary Schools and already three athletes have laid claims to being our leading athlete at the mid-point of the season: Maggie Jones with her hurdles double and Louise Brabyn with her emphatic steeplechase win backed up with fourth in the 3000m (both as indicated also performed earlier in the year).

The third was Lucas Martin who was second in the 3000m walk, producing the third-best time in the 49-year history of the event. Martin had retained his 10km under-20 road walk title in September.

All three are in the New Zealand team competing in the January Classic Meets.

The World Athletics comparative tables provide interesting comparisons. Jones’ 100m hurdles scored 1002 points (albeit over lower hurdles). Brabyn scored 964 points for her steeples and Martin 947 for his walk. Jones gets my nod with her two titles at the Schools Championships (her 300m hurdles is not covered by the tables).

Next week I will be looking ahead to 2023.