Jump Start to London athletes travel the Tasman

Following a development camp at the AIS over the Easter long weekend, a small squad of Jump Start To London 2012 athletes made their way to New Zealand to take part in the National Championships held from 28^th-30^th March at the Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland.

The trip provided athletes with a taste of international competition, for some their second tour of NZ, and many athletes produced both PB’s and SB’s along with medalling in 4 events.

The youngest athlete on the tour, Iesha Beer, started her first international competition with a fantastic result in the under 16 shot put to place 2^nd with a great effort of 11.81m.

Shannon McCann, better known as a 400m hurdler showed that this is not the only event in her repertoire, finishing 3^rd in the Open women’s 100 hurdles with a time of 15.1 seconds.

Tenika Demamiel showed that both horizontal jumps are becoming her forte by smashing her PB 4 times during the open women’s long jump and taking home the bronze for her efforts. Demamiel just missed the medals in her pet event, the triple jump, finishing 4^th with a jump of 12.05m.

A season of hard training payed dividends for the reigning under 19 New Zealand long jump champion Rodney Blair who last year took the title with a leap of 6.66m only holding off his competition by the barest of margins. This time round, at only 18 years of age, he stepped up to tackle the open division and finished in an impressive 3^rd place with a quality effort of 7.45m, just short of his PB of 7.50m. Blair also competed in the open 100m finishing 4^th in the ‘B’ final with 11.35s into a –3 head wind.

Following an impressive Australian domestic season, Ray Williams showed once again he has strength in both the 100m and 200m to record 10.87s in the heats and finishing 8^th in the final of the 100m with a time of 11.07s (-2.1 wind) a race won by New Zealander Chris Donaldson in 10.79s. Williams then stepped it up a notch in the heats of the open 200m to run a PB of 21.31s, only a 100^th of a second outside the World Junior qualifying time. He backed it up with a 21.41s to finish 7^th in the final.

Sixteen-year-old Nathan Sutherland ran well to record PB’s in both 1500m and 5000m events and Peter Harrison recorded a PB in the Open men’s 200m race.

Other finalists included Sarah Mackaway, Aiden Jeanes and Liam Gander.

National Development Manager, Sally McGrady, was ecstatic with the results. “The standard of this year’s group has stepped up a notch from last year, these results show that the Jump Start program talent pool is growing and that our athletes are developing, which is fantastic,” said McGrady.  “It’s really great to introduce these young athletes to new environments and to watch them tackle it head on, I’m confident that the talent we are bringing on through the Jump Start program will really help the sport of athletics as we head to London and beyond.” she continued.

Many of the Jump Start to London crew are now preparing for the Olympic test event in Beijing in May.