Kerr is clearly in great form as he won the last Diamond League in Monaco with a 2.33 metres jump, a performance that equalled his outdoor best.
Kerr is in a world class field with seven having cleared 2.30 metres and includes the great defending Olympic Champion Mutaz Essa Barshim (Qatar) who has a best of 2.43 metres and a season’s best of 2.31 metres.
Tom Walsh and Jacko Gill compete in a hugely impressive shot field led by world record holder Ryan Crouser, his American rival Joe Kovacs and Leonardo Fabri (Italy) who has this season’s best of 22.95 and is world leader.
Jacko Gill, the current New Zealand champion who holds our Cooks Gardens record, will resume his close rivalry with Tom Walsh. Walsh won the Commonwealth title in 2022 with Gill taking silver.
At the World Indoor Championships Walsh took silver (22.07 metres) and Gill fifth (21.69). Both hope for confidence lifting performances just 12 days out from the Olympic shot qualifying round in Paris.
New Zealand also has two in the women’s pole vault with Eliza McCartney and Olivia McTaggart in a mouth-wateringly strong pole vault field.
It is some years since McCartney set a Cooks Gardens record as a teenager and many years since she won her Olympic bronze in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
McCartney has struggled with injury but her silver medal in the World Indoor Championships signals a promising return to form.
McTaggart has recently vaulted 4.63 - only centimetres below her personal best.
British hopes are on Commonwealth Games champion Molly Caudery who has a recent best of 4.92. The field also includes Americans Katie Moon and Sandi Morris, Angel Moser (Switzerland), Australian Nina Kennedy, Alysha Newman (Canada) and Roberta Bruni (Italy). It is hard to imagine a stronger field.
The other Kiwi in action is javelin thrower Tori Peeters. Peeters holds the Cooks Gardens record and will hope to build on her season’s best of 61.26 and better her personal best of 63.26 metres., The strong field of nine athletes provide both a strong challenge and an opportunity.
There are so many world class athletes on show in London and with Britain’s record of outstanding presentation of the sport there is a lot to look forward to.
I am especially interested in the women’s 800 metres with Britain’s Olympic favourite Keely Hodgkinson in outstanding form. Hodgkinson was a late withdrawal last year allowing Scotland’s Jemma Reekie her big opportunity which she firmly grasped.
Both are in this year’s field in which six runners have run under 1 minute 57 seconds as part of a world class programme.
As I was finishing “Insight " I received the sad news that Palmerston North and Manawatū Whanganui Athletics stalwart Alan Adamson had died.
Adamson started at the Palmerston North Club as a seven-year old and, except for a short influential stint with North Shore Bays, has been a Palmerston North Club member throughout. I first met him as a competitor in my first years in Whanganui back in the early 1970s.
We have over the years shared many experiences in the sport with the MWA Centre teams at major Meets. Latterly Adamson preferred travelling and staying with the MWA team when officiating at the New Zealand Championships rather than being with the officials group.
He announced his retirement from officiating nationally at the 2022 Championships in Hawkes Bay but continued to help locally including our most recent Cooks Classic in January.
Adamson was closely involved with the creation of the combined Palmerston North Athletic and Harrier clubs incorporating the children’s side of the sport and serving 24 years in the governance group. Adamson has written regularly on the sport for newspapers and has been the guardian of our centre records.
He will be sadly missed.
