She already holds the 10,000m world record for her age group.
Gibbs did not start the sport until she was already a masters athlete and is inspirational to
masters and younger athletes.
I had no hesitation in inviting her to talk and hand out race numbers to the Whanganui Collegiate runners on the eve of last year’s New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country Championships.
She runs regularly in a host of local events and only days before her trip south, she ran in last week’s 1500m at club night.
Typically, she asked if I minded her running in the 1500 metres and running on for another 100 metres as her esteemed coach Barry Magee (Olympic 1960 Marathon medal winner) had prescribed a mile that day.
Gibbs duly ran her mile and was quick to congratulate a delighted Oliver Jones, who was in the same mixed 1500m.
Jones had just set an eight-second best over 1500m (4:08.08) finishing two seconds under his ambitious target.
Jones fully deserved his success following his conscientious training and attention to detail, resulting in a 20-second improvement over 1500m since the start of the school year.
The Whanganui Collegiate Year 13 athlete has also made big improvements over 800m, finishing second to the accomplished Thomas Gowan (Whanganui High School) at Whanganui Secondary Schools.
Jones was helped to his 1500m performance last week by Daniel Sinclair who acted as pacemaker for the whole journey only days after finishing third in the highly competitive New Zealand under-20 1500 Championships. In the best spirit of middle distance cooperation typified by Gibbs, Jones in turn helped Nathan McKinlay on Saturday’s Parkrun.
This Tuesday saw the 20th and final club night of the season. The C programme gave a valuable final workout for many athletes who will take part in the final major domestic weekend of the season with the South Island Secondary Schools in Timaru and the North Island Secondary Schools in nearby Palmerston North on April 6 and 7.
Jonathan Maples finally ran under 50 seconds for 400m, stopping the clock at 49.34 seconds taking a whole second off his previous best.
Kaylee Bisschoff impressed over 60m and 150m while Rosa Meyer did a Sally Gibbs by running an extra 2.5 laps of the track at the end of the 2km to complete the prescribed 3000m. Meyer should be pleased with her 10 minutes 19 second effort.
The Palmerston North venue for North Island Schools enables a larger group of Whanganui athletes the opportunity to taste a higher level of competition.
Event winners at Whanganui Secondary Schools, along with many others, received an invitation to compete at the Massey Community Track on the weekend after Easter. Sixty-nine athletes have been provisionally selected for the large Whanganui Schools Team.
The provisional list includes Kaylee Bisschoff (Whanganui High School) and winner of the Athletics New Zealand Jennian Homes Track and Field Championships under-16 80m hurdles, who will compete in the intermediate girls grade and also Juliet McKinlay (Whanganui Collegiate School) who won the under-18 long jump and was a silver medal winner over 300m hurdles, who also competes at intermediate grade.
They will be joined by Hannah Byam (Whanganui Collegiate School) who was second in the under-16 2000m steeplechase and the promising Lulu Dufty, who finished sixth in the under-16 triple jump.
Greta Darke (Whanganui Collegiate School) who took bronze in the under-18 2000m steeples, will run in the senior grade as will last year’s 3000m North Island bronze medal winner Rosa Meyer who had to run in the under-20 grade at the Wellington New Zealand Championships.
Next week in Athletics Insight I will preview the championships after the final team has been confirmed.
