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Lamble takes first top-eight for Australian juniors
Spark co-captain Regan Lamble has claimed Australia’s first top-eight finish of the 2010 world junior championships, clocking a new personal best time to finish eighth in the 10,000m walk on day three of the IAAF titles in Moncton, Canada.
Lamble was joined in action on the first
session of day three by fellow race walker Paige Hooper (DQ) as
well as shot putter Matt Cowie, 400m hurdles gun
Sasha Alexeenko and one-lap wonder
Anneliese Rubie, who were all unlucky not to
progress past this morning’s rounds.
In hot, humid conditions Lamble and Hooper made a strong start to
the 25-lap test of endurance, sitting inside the top 10 as the
field started to string out. Moving through the halfway mark in
23:19, Lamble was on track for a strong performance with Hooper hot
on her heels, but in a blow to the Spark’s campaign the South
Australian was disqualified just one lap later, out of the race at
the 5400m-mark.
As the laps counted down Lamble continued to hold ground, the
Australian Institute of Sport scholarship-holder turning on a
blistering final 400m to cross the line in the new personal best
time of 47:55.67.
Lamble said the game plan she and coach Brent
Vallance had devised for today’s race had proved a winning
formula.
“I’m pretty happy with the race, it was really warm out there so I
wasn’t expecting a super quick time but I’m pretty happy with the
way I finished and the time I got to,” the 18-year-old said.
“I came into the race ranked ninth so to
finish eighth I’m really happy with that, our plan was just to take
it out slowly and not to go out too fast because we know that a lot
of girls tend to start in a pack and then the race just spreads
out, so the plan was just to hang in there for the start and see
what I could do after that.”
Today's time is the second personal best mark Lamble has posted
since landing in Canada, clocking a new 5000m best of 22:55.50 at a
warm-up meet in Vancouver 10 days ago and today taking almost 30
seconds off the previous 10,000m career-low mark of 48:21.71 she
recorded in Sydney in March.
The Victorian-born walks talent said the lessons she had learned
competing at the IAAF World Race Walking Cup in May and her
innovative pre-race preparations had helped turn on today’s
top-eight performance.
“I think the World Cup in May really helped me, I learned so much
in that race. It wasn’t the best race for me so I really wanted to
come out in this one and use what I’d learned and I think I did
that fairly well so I’m happy," Lamble said.
“Before the race Paige and I did pre-cooling so what that involved
was spending about 15 minutes in the ice bath and then when we went
into the call room we were wearing ice vests to bring down our core
body temperature and not many of the other countries were doing
anything like that, so I think it gave us a big advantage,
particularly at the start of the race.”
With her world junior championships campaign now complete, Lamble
will return to the AIS to start training for the senior 20km race
distance.
“Next year I’ll be a senior so I have to start
training for the 20km event and hopefully at the end of the year or
early next year I can pull out a good 20km race,” she said.
One of six co-captains appointed to lead the Australian Spark,
Lamble will now shift her attention to the grandstand and cheering
on her teammates in action at Stade Moncton over the coming
days.
“That was one of the things I was really looking forward to once my
race was over, just relaxing and enjoying the time taking in the
atmosphere and cheering everyone on so I’m looking forward to it,”
she said.
In the field for the Australian Spark on day three of the world
junior titles was shot put specialist Matt Cowie, lining up in the
qualifying rounds of the men’s shot put. In a high-quality
competition that saw six of the 12 berths up for grabs in tonight’s
deciding round claimed with automatic qualifying throws, Cowie
placed 22nd overall after stringing together a consistent
series.
Opening his account with a throw of 17.08m, Cowie went on to record
distances of 17.16m and 17.27m.
The Western Australian strong man said the experience would hold
him in good stead as he looks ahead to the 2016 Olympic
Games.
“It was a good experience, I really liked the professional side of
it and it’s nice to get used to that, it doesn’t really come around
every day so I tried to make the best of it,” he said.
“It didn’t quite come off today but I’ve still got plenty of time
until the 2016 Olympics which is my long-term goal.”
Cowie said the step up to the world junior stage was a huge leap,
but one that would prove invaluable in his transition to the senior
ranks.
“It’s a pretty big step up, in Australia and in Western Australia
in particular, there aren’t many throwers and the distances aren’t
as consistently high as what they are here where everyone’s on top
of their game and you need to be able to step up if you can,” he
said.
“Today was kind of the way I thought it was going to play out, the Americans are always up there that’s just the way it is, they just have that natural throwing mentality so I think it all went the way I thought it was going to go, I was hoping to throw a little bit further which didn’t quite happen but I’m still happy that I got to compete abroad and to represent my country.
“It’s nice to know that you’ve been recognised
at a national level and there are people keeping an eye on you so
I’ll go back home, work harder than ever and I’ll be making a
technical change from the glide technique to the spin so there’s
light at the end of the tunnel.”
On the track, national Under 18 400m hurdles record-holder Sasha
Alexeenko placed fifth in his heat of the one-lap hurdles event in
a time of 52.71, just missing out on a berth in the
semi-finals.
In the semi-finals of the women’s 400m, Anneliese Rubie ran a
gallant fifth alongside a quality field of international
challengers, in touch with the leaders heading into the home
straight and going on to cross the line in 54.39.
Rubie, who will return to Stade Moncton on Saturday for the heats
of the 4x400m relay, said she was rapt to have made the semi-finals
on her international debut.
“I felt like I was a lot more focused and relaxed than I was yesterday, I guess I just couldn’t pull out even a PB which is annoying but you can’t really change the race conditions so I’m still happy, I made it to the semi-finals at world juniors which is good, I’m just annoyed I didn’t even get close to a PB,” she said.
“Walking outside and seeing that many people
and it’s all so professional, that’s definitely going to be a good
learning curve for next year and beyond moving into senior
international teams. You get such a thrill from running out there
it just makes you want to do it even more.”
Rubie will be joined by Spark teammates Louise
Maybury, Caitlin Sargent and
Shannon Smith in the heats of the 4x400m relay on
Saturday, where she will be out for a quick time to help the team
into the medal round.
“Now that I’m not running tomorrow I’ll
definitely have time to recover more so I’ll go out there on
Saturday and see if I can crack out a 52-split or something,” she
said.
The action continues at Stade Moncton tonight with Caitlin Sargent
and Patrick Fakiye in the semi-finals of the 100m
and Rosie Lawson in the semi-finals of the 100m
hurdles.
For all the action from the first session of day three,
click
here.
The 13th IAAF world junior championships are being streamed live
online via CBC. Click here
to catch the Australian Spark in action or sign up to AthsAust
here to follow the team on
Twitter.
For a live stream of the meet outside of Canada, click here and select 'other'
sports.
Photo courtesy of Jodi Lambert
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