The Melbourne final was an outstanding event, bringing back to Australia a dozen Olympic gold medal winners, many world record holders and numerous other medal winners and finalists from the Sydney Olympics of the previous year.
This brought depth and quality to all events. It was an enjoyable athletic luxury with no athletes to look after and good and knowledgeable athletics friends to share the weekend experience - a memorable athletics extravagance.
It was sad that for the second year running that the Round the Lake Relay has had to be cancelled because of our alert levels. We will make every effort to make next year's event special as it is hard to regain momentum after what will be a three-year hiatus. We all hope that finally the 42nd edition will be held 45 years after the inaugural event in 1978.
The latest lockdown has, as last year, meant disruption and changes for sport. The postponement of the New Zealand Road Championships to the first weekend in November combined with the delay by a fortnight in the start of NCEA and the necessity of moving the combined New Zealand and Secondary Schools and Athletics New Zealand under 18 and under 16 Championships to a later date has resulted in changes to the late October and early November calendar. Decisions were made after a series of phone calls and Zoom meetings. By the time this goes to press a decision should have been made about the date for the combined championships to complete the new early season programme.
Under lockdown, probably more people have watched the Para Olympics than any previous edition of the event. Television cover has been patchy and a little disappointing in terms of Kiwis in action but it is at least on free-to-air television. I am glad that I decided to record Monday evening events as I would have been frustrated hoping to see William Stedman from Christchurch jump in the T37 Long Jump. I was able to fast forward on Tuesday morning to see Stedman's final jump that elevated him from sixth to the silver medal but the coverage missed all his other jumps and the exciting build-up.
It is impossible not to be inspired and moved by much of what we have seen. There are men and women with multiple disabilities especially evident in the swimming pool. I think back to my days as a physical education teacher and reflect on some of the notes with reasons to be excused for ailments that pale into complete insignificance compared to the Para athletes in Tokyo.
Our track and field athletes are doing very well in Tokyo. Para athletes are included in our National Championships and thus many of the Tokyo athletes are known by our able-bodied athletes.
Lisa Adams competed at the Cooks Classic in January and pushed her shot beyond all in the event with a throw only 1 centimetre below her own world Para record. Although she did have a lighter implement (3 kilograms as opposed to 4 kilograms) her winning performance was impressive. In Tokyo, Adams dominated her event with all her six throws better than the next athlete. Her 15.12-metre win may not have beaten her own world record but the winning margin was 1.43m, nearly 10 per cent better than the silver medal winner. It was great to see her coach and sister Dame Valerie being able to share that Tokyo moment.
Stedman was able to add a second medal, this time bronze, in the T35 400m. It was clear that he gave everything on the home straight to move into the medal position as he lay exhausted trackside. Aucklander Danielle Aitchison, 20, secured a silver in the T36 200m in her Olympic debut. I will be watching the last few days from Tokyo with interest.
Rather like Sky Sport, I may be forced to look back at highlights of 20 years of Insight articles if we do not move quickly down alert levels.
