On a blustery spring Hawke's Bay day, Tayla Brunger captured the perfect legal tailwind of 2 metres per second to record her first legal sub-12-second 100 metres, stopping the clock at 11.96s in the first round of the Regional League at the weekend.
Later in the meeting, Brunger set her second legal best performance over 200m in an outstanding 24.76s with a 1.1 metre /second following wind. It is always encouraging for an athlete when they start a new season where they ended the previous one. In Christchurch in March at the New Zealand Championships, Brunger may have run the half-lap faster (24.17s) but in March she had the benefit of a strong tailwind. Brunger produced the top Whanganui performances at the first of three regional meetings.
Jacky Dai's win in the triple jump was one of five from Whanganui athletes. Last year Dai won a silver medal in the junior grade at New Zealand Schools and although he did not set a best in Hastings, he should be encouraged by his season opener of 12.42m snatching a 3cm win in the fifth round. Dai earlier had come only 3cm shy of his best in the long jump. In both horizontal jump competitions, Dai had a number of narrow fouls in the fickle changeable wind which was hard to handle. Dai should be encouraged by his early-season form.
In the same competition Dai's Collegiate training partner Jonty Tripe, who had earlier won a steeples in a mixed race (an unusual combination of events) had his first 12m triple jump to finish third. Half an hour later Keela Cashmore broke her own jump barrier with her first 10-metre triple jump to take fourth.
The opening meeting in the Regional League that covers the lower North Island alternates between Hastings and Inglewood. Both venues involve considerable travel distances for clubs and the opening meetings often attract low entries.