Howe breaks Australian women’s Pole Vault record with 4.61m in Canberra

Kym Howe needed just two jumps to break the Australian women's Pole Vault record, Jana Pittman won her 400m Hurdles comeback and Matt Shirvington cleared his own mental barrier to win the 100 metres in the first Telstra A-Series of 2006 held in Canberra, Australia, earlier today.

West Australian Howe, 25, who trained with Emma George when she vaulted a World record height of 4.60m in early 1999, opened today at 4.41m - a centimetre higher than the automatic qualifying entry standard for the last Olympic final which Kym was unable to clear in Athens.

Sydney Olympic silver medallist Tatiana Grigorieva also cleared 4.41m at her first attempt to secure second place but she failed at 4.50m and could only watch as Howe gave an exhibition clearing 4.61m at the first try.

Howe then packed away her pole, a precaution against injury with the 84th Telstra Australian Championships running next week from 2 to 5 February at Sydney Olympic Park. The nationals double as team selection trials for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March.

""It's a huge relief,'' Howe said. "Ever since Emma (George) used to train with us in Perth I've wanted to break her record and it has been a long time coming.”

Injury and fatiguing work in child-care has kept Howe down. She suggested she may have to retire after the Melbourne Games unless she can secure sponsorship to support her training.

"I've got the drive to be No.1 in Australia,'' Howe declared. "I was so disappointed to finish second at the Manchester Commonwealth Games. I am tired of being No. 2 (to Grigorieva). My original plan was to give Melbourne a go and then retire but now I might have to think about Beijing (the 2008 Olympics).

"I think this year, more mentally, I knew I had it (a record jump) in me. Before I was a bit soft. I don't think 4.80m or 4.90m is out of reach.''

“Re-built” Pittman returns with a win

Pittman, 23, the youngest woman to win the World 400m Hurdles Championship in Paris in 2003, had her Olympic medal bid wrecked by knee surgery the following year and abandoned her title defence last year with a stress fracture in her spine.

It has been a sobering time for the precocious and gregarious Sydneysider but under the coaching of her British fiancé Chris Rawlinson she has rebuilt her endurance platform from which she launched her return to hurdling yesterday.

She won comfortably in 54.81 and looked capable of going much faster with closer opposition. Victoria's Sonia Brito, on a comeback of her own, took second in 57.08 with Canberra's young hometown hero Lauren Boden, the national title-holder, third in 57.45.

"I am probably in the best shape I've ever been in but I haven't raced," Pittman said. "I was so nervous at the start my hands were absolutely jumpy. I haven't run a 400 for seven months so I was just petrified."

It was Pittman's first 400m Hurdles since the Rome Golden League in July last year.

Shirvington bounces back too

Shirvington has suffered an even longer run of bad fortune, coming to the Paris World titles meet short of form and tired, a symptom subsequently diagnosed as glandular fever. Little has gone right on the track since then, but his disappointing form at the Helsinki World Championships shook him from his lethargy.

"I have had such a horrible last three years but it's nice to be winning again,'' Shirvington said after upsetting perhaps the best domestic men's 100m field ever assembled.

Against the only headwind of the meet, "Shirvo" grabbed victory in 10.28sec (-2.3m/s) from Nigeria-born Ambrose Ezenwa (10.29), Australian record-holder Patrick Johnson (10.30), Adam Miller (10.33), Daniel Batman (10.35) and national title-holder and Helsinki semi-finalist Joshua Ross (10.35). Six men separated by 7/100ths of a second all in Commonwealth Games B-qualifying times into a stiff breeze.

Batman, a descendent of John Batman who brokered a pact with the indigenous land owners and staked out the territory upon which Melbourne would be built, later showed signs of what may have been but for the headwind.

The powerful Sydney sprinter, who is married to Australia's first Aboriginal Olympic gold medallist (1996 Atlanta hockey winner Nova Peris),  backed up to win the 200m in 20.29 (wind assistance 2.4m/s) from Ezenwa (20.59) and Miller (20.72).

‘Budgie’ is grounded

A five-time national 100m champion, Shirvington said his fightback was inspired by pole vaulter Paul "Budgie" Burgess who recovered from some lean years to clear 6-metres last year.

But Burgess failed to fly yesterday, no-heighting as 2001 Edmonton World Champion Dmitri Markov won a disappointing competition with a mere 5.35m from fellow West Australian Luke Vedelago and Victorian Olympian Steve Hooker (also 5.35m).

Australia's "silver bullets" - the men's 4x400m relay Athens Olympic runners-up - looks set to continue firing for some seasons to come after Athens anchor, South Africa-born Clinton Hill won the Canberra 400m in 45.06.

His personal best run in just his third 400m run of the new season establishes Hill as nominal favourite for the Melbourne Games one-lap race, while young Victorian Sean Wroe improved a whole second to run 45.35sec ahead of Perth's Chris Troode (45.42). Athens relay member Mark Ormrod of Adelaide  was fourth in 45.73.

Melbourne's bald-headed Scott Martin won the Shot Put with a toss of 19.40m from Sydney's Clay Cross (18.73m) as Athens Olympic finalist and Mardid World Cup second-placer Justin Anlezark finished only fifth with a second-round best of 17.90m.

Anlezark hyper-extended the finger he damaged in the Olympic final and passed his last three attempts as a precaution.

Perth's Oliver Dzubiak hurled the Javelin 80.62m to defeat New Zealander Stuart Farquhar (77.76m) and Will Hamlyn-Harris (76.66m), while the horizonal jumps saw young winners in Sydney's John Thornell (8.08m, wind +1.6m/s) and Adelaide's Alwyn Jones (16.79m , wind +0.6m/s).

Thornell was scared to a personal best by an even younger North Queenslander, Robert Crowther, who equalled Thornell's national under-20 record with a prodigious leap of 7.99m (wind +1.4m/s).

Queensland's 100m Hurdles 2003 World Youth Champion, Sally McLellan, won a great treble yesterday in the 100m (11.41, wind +0.6m/s), 200m (23.36, wind + 0.6m/s) and her parade event, the hurdles in 13.17(wind +1.2m/s).

Tamsyn Lewis won yesterday's 400m in 52.48 from fellow 800m starlet Caitlin Willis (52.75sec) and Annabelle Smith (52.85). Willis is the younger sister of 2003 World Cross-Country Champion Benita Johnson.

In all, 19 competitors recorded Athletics Australia's stiff Commonwealth Games A-standard marks (including eight new names) and there were also a stunning 46 Games B-standard qualifying marks.

It was a tremendously heartening start to the annual Telstra A-Series and set the host national team on their way to what promises to be a highly competitive effort at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

Mike Hurst (Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Australia) for the IAAF

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