Athletics: Strong line-up for Cooks Classic in Whanganui on January 27

Sam Tanner will be back at the Cooks Classic, looking for his fourth sub-4-minutes at the 'home of the mile'. Photo / Peter Jones

As the New Zealand Mile Championship runners line up at 9.05pm on Saturday at the Pak’nSave Cooks Classic, it will be exactly 62 years since Peter Snell stood on the start line on January 27, 1962 - 3 minutes and 54.4 seconds later he breasted the tape setting a new world record that put Cooks Gardens on the world athletics map.

Whanganui’s iconic venue and the event have been recognised by World Athletics with World Athletics Heritage Plaques. It is therefore hardly surprising that the New Zealand Mile Championship will conclude Saturday’s Cooks Classic which follows the 25th Potts Classic in Hastings last Saturday. The lower North Island series ends with the 25th Anniversary Team Ledger Harcourts Capital Classic on Friday, February 2. All three meetings have World Athletics Challenger Tour Meet status.

The Mile Championship provides the climax of an action-packed evening as 31 milers look to add themselves to the roll of 75 sub-4-minute miles at “the home of the mile”. Tokyo Olympian Sam Tanner has run three of them and sits fifth on the Cooks all-time list. If Tanner can add another on Saturday, he will join Hamish Christensen and the great Sir John Walker on four. Nick Willis, who holds the Stadium Record (3:52.75), achieved the mark on five occasions.

In an Olympics year, the Cooks Classic is very much part of Tanner’s preparation planning. Training partner Julian Oakley has also run under 4 minutes and was the 2022 New Zealand Mile Champion at the 2022 Cooks Classic. There is international interest with the return of Australian Callum Davies. He finished second to Tanner last year and produced the 16th fastest mile at Cooks Gardens while Matthew Taylor returns to try to emulate his 2022 performance. Whanganui athlete and New Zealand under-20 1500m champion Daniel Sinclair has been given the responsibility of setting the pace. Sinclair should be encouraged by his personal best over 800m at the Potts Classic on Saturday.

The women’s mile, run immediately before the men, features Laura Nagel who won in 2022 with what was then a track record. Nagel will renew her close rivalry with Rebekah Aitkenhead (nee Greene) who was third last year behind two Australians, adding her name to the Cooks Gardens roll of honour. Pacific Games 800m and 1500m champion Tillie Hollyer and 16-year-old Boh Richie, fresh from breaking the New Zealand under-17 800m record in Hastings, will add spice to the race.

Reigning Commonwealth Games high jump champion and World Indoor bronze medal winner Hamish Kerr has always performed well in Whanganui. In three successive years from 2020, he set stadium records and came close last year. He went on to show his international class by finishing third in the Diamond League final in the northern summer. The proximity of the high jump to the fence gives the opportunity to see close-up a world-class jumper in action.

There is an international feel about the men’s and women’s javelin. In the men’s, the list is headed by Felise Vahai Sosaia of France who has an 82.04m best. In the women’s competition, there are two Japanese world championship competitors, Sae Takamoto (63.39) and Yuka Sato (62.88), supported by Jona Aigouy from France (58.12). The javelin and long jump were originally slated as combined fields but have now been split because of the large number entered. There were 100 across all events in the hours before entries closed on Sunday.

The largest entry (40 athletes) is in the 400m. The Challenger men’s and women’s 400m races, the latter featuring in-form World Championship representative Portia Bing, precede three further heats with all 40 athletes competing for the handicap award. The system has handicap times deducted from their performance. Two years ago, only one second separated the leading 10 athletes on handicap. Former Whanganui Collegiate School decathlete Max Attwell will be busy on Saturday and is also part of the 400m field, returning to the track where he won his sixth New Zealand decathlon title last February.

At all three meets in the Classic series, the leading athletes on World Athletics performance points pocket $500 as prize money (15 on Saturday) with a further group, including local athletes, competing for smaller amounts. Athletes who run under 4 minutes (including the female equivalent) get further rewarded and stadium record breakers pocket a further $250.

Visiting Australian sprinter Jake Doran, who was a Commonwealth Games semifinalist with a best of 10.15s, has every chance of taking both the stadium record and the performance points award in what could be a lucrative visit to Cooks Gardens.