Men's long jump Jai Taurima (© © Allsport)
Wins to Jai Taurima and Andrew Currey led the Australian successes at the 15th Shizuoka International Meet in Japan yesterday (Monday).
Taurima produced a very encouraging leap of 8.07m with a legal wind reading of + 1.8m/sec. to defeat a classy field in the men's long jump. The win was an excellent dress rehearsal for the IAAF Grand Prix Meet in Osaka on Saturday.
Currey had his sights set on a world championships men's javelin qualifying mark of 82.50m in Osaka. Whilst his 74.78m winning throw in Shizuoka may appear well short of the mark, two warm-up throws well over 80m indicated that the hotter field on Saturday should bring out the best in the Aussie Number One.
Marg Crowley, in only her second run since having 18 months off to have a child, clocked 4.14.31 secs in finishing second to American Cheri Kenah, moving her to the head of the Australian rankings for the 1500m. She had set herself a time of 4.18.0 secs as a satisfactory comeback mark, and nearly four seconds faster was a pleasant surprise. She will now concentrate on the winter cross country season to build up further strength in preparation for the Sydney 2000 Olympics where she hopes to improve on her 5th place in Atlanta.
The Shizuoka Meet also produced creditable performances by three Australian newcomers to international athletics. 17 year old Jacqui Munro showed she was far from fazed in facing senior women in overseas competition by qualifying for the 100m hurdles final into a difficult headwind (-2.4 m/sec) in second place in 14.13 secs. In the final she improved her time to 13.93 secs (-1.5 m/secs) to finish sixth behind the experienced Yvonne Kanazawa of Japan.
More impressive still was Adelaide's Stephen Thurston who recorded a personal best of 1.50.50 secs in finishing third behind US star Rich Kenah in the men's 800m. It was an ideal lead up to his most important race of the tour, the 300m steeplechase at Mito on Wednesday. The third tour debutant mark Gorski was 4th in the same race in 1.50.64 after challenging Kenah for the lead with 200m to go.
Darren Lynch finished 9th in 13.58.28 secs in an erratically run men's 500m, won by Kenyan Joseph Ndungu in 13.36.57 secs.
In the absence of a men's triple jump on the programme Andrew Murphy took the opportunity to run in the men's 200m heats, recording a time of 21.87 (-1.3 m/sec) to prepare for his next competition, in Mito.
This information has been provided by Athletics Australia.
Email: info@athletics.org.au
Web: http://www.athletics.org.au
