19.03.2010

Tasmania braces for bumper weekend of athletics action

The Tasmanian athletics season will hit overdrive in coming weeks as the 2010 IGA Tasmanian Track and Field Championships get under way.
 
Held over consecutive weekends, the championships begin tomorrow at Launceston’s St Leonard’s Athletics Centre.
 
With new regulations being passed on by Athletics Australia this season a strong list of entries has been received, the top three place-getters in each open event now eligible to compete at next month's Go for 2&5 88th Australian Athletics Championships and Commonwealth Games selection trials in Perth, Western Australia.
 
Day one will be highlighted by the return to competition of Tasmanian discus record-holder Graham Hicks. Hicks has been quiet for much of this athletics season due to illness but will return from Melbourne for the state titles, where he will go head-to-head with dynamic throwing brothers Hamish and Huw Peacock at 2:30pm.
 
An exciting evening of action on the track kicks off with the men's and women's open 200m state finals. The men’s final at 4:40pm is expected to bring North Launceston’s Monbo Jetoh up against Eastern Suburbs sprinter Dan Lemoto, Sandy Bay’s Jarred Gilroy and Rowan Mason.
 
The women will also have to back up from heats earlier in the program in time for their final at 4:45pm. Defending champion Abby Chapman will be the one to beat, having shown strong form this season. Competition for the North West sprinter is likely to come from Hobart’s Kimberly Bush, who took the sprint double at last weekend’s Hobart interclub, and Australian Junior Championships relay medallist Laura Nicholson of North Launceston.
 
Perhaps the most intriguing match-up of the weekend will come in the women’s 800m, scheduled for 5:10pm. The race will bring together Tasmania’s top sprinter this season in Danielle Taylor and the state’s top distance runner at present, Hanny Allston.
 
Both athletes, who will each be making their debut over the two-lap distance, will be up against national junior finalist Claudia Conley, who is fresh from running a personal best time of 2:15- in Sydney last week.
 
The men’s final will have to wait until 12:05pm on Sunday, following the heats at 5:15pm tomorrow evening. One of the largest fields of the championships, the event has attracted some top entries including Northern Suburbs runner Grant Page, OVA’s Tom Beard, Dom Anastasio and Nathan Morey, Eastern Suburbs stalwart Stephen Rae and young guns James Hansen and Jordan Tyler.
 
Highlights in the field on day two are expected to come from state javelin record-holder Hamish Peacock. The Tasmanian Institute of Sport athlete will return to the venue where he set the current state record of 74.54m in an attempt to better the Commonwealth Games B-qualifying mark of 75.00m.
 
Also in the field, the men’s high jump is building as an exciting battle. Fresh from a personal best and national silver medal in Sydney last week, Joel Mason will be hoping to go at least one centimetre better than his new lifetime best of 1.99m and crack that elusive two-metre barrier. He will have strong competition from North West athlete Andrew Dieker, the 27-year-old former US college-based jumper with a personal best of 2.18m and a current season's best of 1.96m.
 
At 3pm on Saturday the successful Tasmanian team that travelled to Sydney last week for the inaugural Australian Junior Championships will have an appreciation get-together for the athletics family. The team brought home 22 medals from the championships for its best result since the 1990s.
 
What: 2010 IGA Tasmanian Track and Field Championships
Where: St Leonards Athletics Centre, Launceston
When: Saturday March 20 and Sunday March 21
Entry: Free
Information: www.tasathletics.org.au