Hamish Kerr won the Cooks Classic high jump with a 2.19m effort. Photo / Peter Jones
Hamish Kerr won the Cooks Classic high jump with a 2.19m effort. Photo / Peter Jones
The Pak’nSave Cooks Classic was blessed in so many ways.
Warm conditions, following a spell of fine weather, a gentle breeze that favoured sprinters on the home straight and a televised interview with Olympic high jump champion Hamish Kerr helped draw a large and enthusiastic crowd on Saturday to Cooks Gardens, “The Home of the Mile”.
Organisation started many months ago, gathering momentum in the final days.
On Friday more than 2000 safety pins were attached to athletes’ racing bibs and hundreds of gift bags supplied by meet sponsor Pak’nSave were filled.
The usual pressures of the day for organisers mean that they get little more than glimpses and snapshots of the action unfolding.
Kerr cut the ribbon on the new high jump topper pad supplied by our generous sponsor. It provided my first snapshot of the large crowd at the nearby fence to cheer on Kerr and fellow high jumpers.
For Kerr, in a post-Olympic year and on a different build-up, meant his stadium record was not threatened.
He won with a 2.19m jump. Kerr’s presence, however, provided an atmosphere that fuelled a whole raft of impressive personal bests from so many in the field.
The 48 children representing their neighbourhood and district were first to run on the newly resurfaced track in the evening session. It provided a vibrant start to the main session and a track entrée for the main course to follow.
The opening senior event, the 400m hurdles, attracted all the top five from the 2024 rankings and two New Zealand Schools representatives.
Jono Maples on his way to a personal best of 52.05s to win the 400m hurdles. Photo / Peter Jones
There was a real local flavour to the field headed by top-ranked Jonathan Maples; new schools champion Damian Hodgson and Nat Kirk also featured in the strong field.
Maples, only four weeks after surgery, delivered. He won by a large margin and a 0.7s personal best (52.05s), backing up his personal best on the previous Club Night when he improved by a similar margin over 400m, stopping the clock at 48.12s.
At the same time, Maples’ sister Lexi, now based in Los Angeles, finished second to Olympian Lauren Bruce in the World Athletic Tour Bronze hammer.
Bruce threw the hammer out to 67.48m while Maples had a 62.10m throw. Maples should be pleased with her out-of-season effort, nearly 4m further than her previous best in New Zealand.
Bruce and Maples finished first and second respectively in the shot with Liam Ngchok-Wulf impressively winning in the male division with a personal best 17.52m from Nathaniel Sulupo (16.53m).
World junior triple jump champion and New Zealand record holder, 19-year-old Ethan Olivier, shattered the stadium record by 1.43m with a 16.60m effort. His brother Welre was second (15.42m), just 1cm shy of the old record.
Cooks Gardens continues to be the venue milers want to run at with 91 runners competing in the three championship miles - masters (23 athletes), women (23 athletes) and men (45 athletes).
All the miles were Athletics New Zealand championships with the men and women having the additional status of being World Continental Tour Bronze events.
The milers delivered. There was a strong local flavour to the masters in the pre-meet programme with Whanganui’s Brendan Sharratt finishing second (4m 54.22s) behind Nick Horspool (Wellington Scottish). Sally Gibbs was first woman across the line with a personal best and another New Zealand record (5m 43.97s) with Bex Sharratt (6m 11.36s) winning her grade. Such was the depth of the field and level of competition that the masters event may be added to the main programme in future years.
The world-class Australian Linden Hall, on the eve of her departure for major indoor meets in the United States, quickly recovered from the slow opening lap in the women’s mile, steadily increasing the pace to win (4m 35.28s) from fellow Australian Izzy Thorton-Bott (4m 39.84s). Vancouver-based Alison Andrews-Paul, in third, took the New Zealand title (4m 40.86s). Taylor Werner (USA) was fourth with Brigid Dennehy (6th) and Tillie Hollyer (7th) taking respective New Zealand silver and bronze medals. Hall became the eighth to run the female equivalent sub-4-minute mile at Cooks Gardens.
Sam Tanner won his third consecutive Cooks Gardens and New Zealand titles and joined Nick Willis on five Cooks Gardens sub-4-minute miles.
Sam Ruthe, 15, was fourth in the men's mile with a world-class time of 4m 01.72s. Photo / Peter Jones
Tanner followed pacemaker Conal McLean in the opening two laps, holding off the strong challenge of tall Australian Jack Bruce, both finishing under 4 minutes (3m 55.75s and 3m 56.90s respectively).
Australian para athlete Jaryd Clifford came tantalisingly close to breaking 4 minutes, finishing third (4m 00.45s.) Fifteen-year-old Sam Ruthe in fourth place (4m 01.72s) took the New Zealand silver medal with another world-class teenage performance. The championship race followed competitive B and C division races.
