Vili, Lewis impress, Batman defeats Wariner at 200m - Sydney report

Sydney, AustraliaValerie Vili served notice of her determination to add the World indoor Shot Put title to her outdoor crown  with a mighty display of power on Saturday at the Sydney Grand Prix in which local sprinters upset their more decorated guests who included American Jeremy Wariner.

The Sydney Athletics Grand Prix is one of a select group of Area meetings at which points can be acquired by athletes to qualify for the 2008 IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final to be held on 13-14 September in Stuttgart.

Vili, the towering New Zealander, extended her world outdoor lead to 19.78m and in so doing threw further than Belorussia’s Nadzeya Ostapchuk’s best indoor mark of 2008, her 19.73m in Minsk on 19 January.

“I’m not 100 percent, I’ve got a bit of a back injury but I’m managing it,” said Vili, explaining that she hurt herself doing 50m sprints on a grass track at home in Auckland.

Vili, who has an English father and a Tongan mother, is married to French Discus champion Bertrand Vili who she met in New Caledonia. Together with Valerie’s coach, Kirsten Hellier, Bertrand contributed thoughts which led to Vili experimenting with her action last night and the evidence suggests the changes have worked.

In 200m tune-up, Batman defeats Wariner

Of course it would be ridiculous to suggest that after a loss in his season opening race over 200m that Wariner’s recent change of coach, from Clyde Hart to Michael Ford has not worked out.

It was only to be expected that the Australian sprinters gearing up for their national championships which double as their main Olympic selection trial (February 28-March 2) would have the edge in sharpness and race fitness.

So Daniel Batman, running in the lane immediately inside Wariner, got the jump and stole a couple of metres within the first 50m of the 200m race and although the Olympic 400m champion closed on the stocky Australia he could not catch him in time. Batman clocked 20.81 (-0.5m/s) and held on to beat Wariner (20.93), NSW’s Henry Mitchell (21.05) and Jamaica’s 2005 Helsinki World 100m silver medallist Michael Frater (21.11) who suffered after the race.

“It’s my first race, really a tune-up race for me,” said Wariner who will contest his favoured 400m in the Melbourne Grand Prix, a World Athletics Tour meet this Thursday 21 February.

“Last year I started in 21-flat. I’m below 21 this year. My strength is there. I was able to fight back, but in my first 50 I could feel Batman get up on me.

“I knew Daniel Batman is a good runner. He was recruited to Baylor (the University Wariner attended and still trains at in Waco, Texas), but he didn’t come. I don’t know why. Anyway, I’m not worried about getting beaten now, especially in the 200.”

He preferred not to speculate on what time he might be capable of over 400m based on his 200 result last night, but it is safe to say the tightness through his entire action evident as he searched for top speed he doesn’t have yet will not be a factor in Melbourne where the longer distance will permit him to relax into the superb rhythm which typifies his 400m performances.

Two Aussies go sub-2 in the same race for the first time

The performance of perhaps greatest significance for the home crowd last night came in the women’s 800m in which, for the first time, two Australians bettered two minutes in the same race.

Tamsyn Lewis, already winner of 11 national 800m titles and now fitter than she’s ever been, was dominant up front winning in 1:59.59, while fellow Victorian Madeleine Pape forged below her previous best of 2:01.17 from last year to clock 1:59.92 to become only the fifth Australian under two minutes.

Both women broke the meet record of 2:00.52 Lewis had set in the year of the Sydney Olympics, newcomer Pape now looking likely to represent at the Beijing Games having never run for Australia even at junior level.

How appropriate then for Pape, 24, a student in international studies who is contemplating a career working for the Dept of Foreign Affairs.

“It doesn’t even feel real. It’s just amazing. I can’t believe it,” Pape said of her breakthrough run which broke the Olympic A-qualifying standard of 2min exactly.

Lewis has done it tough all these years, carrying the burden of making the pace and for that she is respected. She probably did not need to comment over the public address system post-race that: “I’m looking forward to running in Europe. It sucks running on your own all the time.”

Pape responded later by saying she loves running against Lewis, who she has never bettered over any distance. But Pape added: “I ran my fastest first lap ever last weekend in the Victorian state championships and we didn’t have a pacemaker. Every race overseas has a pace maker. She (Lewis) has to give more credit to the other girls. She’s not the only one doing hard work out there.”

Nevertheless it is Lewis who carries Australia’s 800 hopes at the World indoor championships in Valencia from 7-9 March.

Rough and tumble men’s 1500m

The other middle distance race also provided a brilliant battle as the 1500, which included eight sub 3:40 runners in the field of 10, saw the first three cross the line in times faster the Olympic B-qualifying mark of 3:39.00.

Beaten at the NSW state championships only a week ago, Bradley Woods tumbled to the track after finishing first last night in 3:37.63 ahead of Queensland’s Mitchell Kealey (3:37.65) with Zatopek 10,000m champion Collis Birmingham of Victoria third (3:37.88) after breaking to the front with 150m to go.

“This was everything I had hoped for. Everyone in the race had a crack,” said Woods, 24, a civil engineering student at Sydney University. “This is probably the first night I’ve peaked at the right time. I’ve done a bit more speed work this year which helped the back end of my race.”

Three Kenyans in the race struggled at that pace, the first of them, Bernard Kiptum, finishing sixth in 3:39.74.

Visitors also struggled in the other men’s sprints, with former national champion Matt Shirvington hanging on just long enough to gain the verdict in a photo-finish from 2003 Paris World 100m silver medallist Darrel Brown of Trinidad, both in 10.43 (+0.1m/s). Under the pressure Shirvington reverted in the later stages to his old technical model but he did enough good work through to 60m to show that he could yet regain the national title.

“It’s just nice to get a couple of wins again. I’ve just got to get a break with the time,” Shirvington said. “This is my last crack (at an Olympics).  I’m sick of running slow. I just want to run fast again. I’ve enjoyed this season more than I ever have. An Olympic Games is a big incentive. I’m not saying I’ll retire after this, although I nearly did after the (2006) Commonwealth Games. “

Victorian Sean Wroe, the Australian champion, won the 400m in 45.84 overhauling Queensland’s Dylan Grant (46.16) with US Olympic 4x400m relay gold medallist Darold Williamson fifth in 46.53 in his season-opener.

But Jamaica’s Sherone Simpson, the world’s No.1 100m performer in 2006, made easy and stylish work of winning the women’s 200m in 23.44 (-0.7m/s) from Fiji’s Makelesi Batimala (23.84) and Victoria’s Lauren Hewitt (24.12).

“I’m much stronger mentally after coming through injuries last year,” Simpson said. “I definitely don’t want to go through that again.”

Powell unsure about Melbourne appearance

Her stablemate at coach Stephen Francis’s MVP squad, 100m World recordholder Asafa Powell, was due to have four stitches removed from his left knee after the meet finished.

“I’m getting some good treatment. I’ll make the decision about competing in Melbourne after I’ve done some practice (probably on Monday),” Powell said.

The world’s fastest man, known for his casual approach to training, confessed that he injured his knee falling in the stairs at his home in Jamaica when he should have been at training, just a day before his scheduled departure for Australia.

“I can’t help it sometimes being late for training – but I’ll never fall on the stairs again,” he said with a broad bright smile.

In other results: Japan’s Tusuku Tanonaka was too powerful and technically efficient in winning the 110m Hurdles in 13.88 (-1.0m/s) from NSW’s Justin Merlino (13.95) and New Zealand’s James Mortimer (14.06).

China took the top two spots in the men’s triple jump, Yanxi Li (16.58m) winning from Shujing Zhu (16.41m); Victoria’s Ben Harradine remained consistent in winning the discus with 61.50m; Victoria’s Georgie Clarke won the national title in capturing the 5000m in 15:24.03.; Queenslander Bronwyn Thompson continues her return to form, long jumping 6.52m (+0.0).

Mike Hurst for the IAAF