Valerie Vili reaches 19.72m in Canberra (© Getty Images)
Valerie Vili claimed her eighth straight New Zealand Shot Put title, while Nick Willis and Kimberley Smith showed their world class status at the Athletics New Zealand Union Track and Field Championships over the weekend (28-30 Mar).
World outdoor and indoor Shot Put champion Vili hit 20 metres even, and was pleased with her winning performance of 20.00m.
"Yes very happy with 20.00m and a back up throw of 19.99m. It was consistent right through the competition," said Vili. "This meeting was not targeted to come out with a big throw. But what a way to finish the season with a throw of 20m at your nationals," she added.
Vili's New Zealand resident record is 20.20m and her national record set in winning the world title in Osaka last year is 20.54m.
A month's training in New Zealand and a training camp in Australia and Beijing before returning to New Zealand to travel with the New Zealand team to the Olympic Games will keep Vili busy in her lead up to hopefully an Olympic gold in the shot.
Smith, Willis unchallenged
Kimberley Smith ran a solo 15min 19.61sec to win the women's 5000m title. She was ten seconds outside Nyla Carroll's New Zealand resident record set in Christchurch in 1996.
"It was pretty windy out there, I wanted to go at 10km pace, I didn't want to run too fast as I have a 10km race in the States in a month's time," she said. "It was just a nice hard effort before that."
Rowan Baird finished second in 16min 9.29sec, with Beijing bound triathlete Samantha Warriner third in 16min 16.25sec. Baird won the women's 1500m title in 4min 26.84sec on the final day of the championships.
Nick Willis showed what a class athlete he is, with a polished display of running over the final lap to win his second national 1500m title. While not worrying about time, but rather the victory, Willis was well clear in 3m 44.46s, beating Samoa's Aunese Curreen, who set a fresh Samoan record of 3m 50.24s. Aniel Smith of Auckland finished well to claim third in 3m 51.63s.
In front of one of the biggest crowds seen at Mt Smart Stadium for some time, Willis acknowledged the support with an honest effort. "It was really nice that a couple of the guys, Luke Hurring and I think Andrew Davidson, kept the pace pretty honest and really helped set it up so that the crowd could see a true performance, had it been a sort of a 3min 55sec race it would have been a bit of a disappointment, so I mean I still had to be a little bit careful. Aunese Curreen from Samoa has been running very, very well and you've got to give all your competitors respect," Willis said.
"Victory was first and foremost and then really trying to work on different aspects of my race which I've often been weak and in the past and for the Olympics, so running right on the leader, on the shoulder of the leader, rather than being stuck on the inside of him, that's why I got disqualified in the world champs. So now I'm learning to be a bit more competitive on the outside, and in the last 200m really relaxing but still striding through like I did in Melbourne two years ago."
Since the world indoor championships, Willis has been putting in some high miles. "I went for a 14 mile run two days ago and then this morning I still ran eight miles, so I was not too worried about the time I ran today," he said.
Willis has seven races lined up from the end of May through to Beijing. "I have two trips to Europe plus two big races in the States and the first of those is against the world champion Bernard Lagat, we will be heading off in the 1500m in Los Angeles on the 20th May, so it would be fantastic to get a scalp. It's really important for me to get some scalps to the best guys in the world and to post a fast time, so that if I do run near the front in competition like Beijing they're going to be standing back and a little timid to make any extra moves. But you've got to earn that respect and that's what I've got to do first, is put up those performances to sort of confirm my spot as one of the main contenders for a medal."
Willis capped off a successful New Zealand championships by running a personal best 400m of 48.6sec, in running the third leg for the Wellington team in the 4 x 400m relay, where they won the bronze medal.
15th Discus Throw title for Faumuina
Beatrice Faumuina put herself in line to be selected for the Beijing Olympics with a throw of 61.73m for her fifteenth New Zealand discus throw title. The 33-year-old eclipsed the selection standard of 61m in the opening round before embarking on one of her best series of throws for some time.
All her throws apart from the last round were over 59m with the second round out to 60.75m. "It was nice to get it out in the first round and I look at my series, it’s not too bad, it's probably the best I've done in a couple of years, which is good," said a beaming Faumuina.
"61.73m is a step in the right direction and it is good to do it a home. I've got a lot of work to do, we've changed a lot of the technical aspects of the throw and we only started it at the end of Christmas so if it is what that work can produce after three months I'm looking forward to the next couple of months," she added.
Faumuina's next competition is in Osaka on May 10. Her coach Ross Dallow, 1956 New Zealand junior Discus Throw champion, said that Faumuina has been determined to come back after her disappointment at the World Championships in Osaka last year.
Faumuina has attended six World Championships, four Commonwealth Games and three Olympic Games. She won two Commonwealth gold medals, in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 and Manchester in 2002; the world title in 1997 in Athens; and the World Cup title in Madrid in 2002.
Elsewhere, Stuart Farquhar took out his eighth New Zealand javelin throw title with 78.21m, beating Australian Josh Robinson who was out to 75.94m. James Dolphin made it four years in a row in the 200m, winning in 20.91s.
Murray McKinnon/Athletics New Zealand for the IAAF
