Fiona Hely back to her best
Being out of scene in Canada for a year has not at all blunted the speed of Fiona Hely. After her long absence, the sizzling sprinter showed up at Caledonian Ground on Saturday. The famous Hill City athlete grasped the pressure well, depicted her determination
for the success and emphatically won women’s 200m in just 26.22 seconds leaving Olivia Tuck, her close rival behind with a margin of 1.2 seconds.
Prior to this race, the 22-year-old applied sciences graduate from Otago University, Hely had been away from athletics for around last twelve months as she had been busy spending her time as an exchange student in Vancouver. Prior to this long absence of
hers she had been an active member of Brent Ward’s sprint stable. Hely established herself as a first class athlete when she made it to the gold medal in junior women’s 200m held in Auckland, New Zealand two years back. Since then she had been a member of
the gold medal winning senior women’s team for 4x100m relay at Otago.
The event at New Zealand proved to be rather outstanding for the young athlete as afterwards she also succeeded in bagging a silver medal at the senior women’s 4x400 relay and a bronze medal at the junior women’s 100m. In the competition for women’s 100m
sprint held on Saturday, though Hely looked a bit rusty in the start as she was beaten by her club mate Tessa Carnie who made it to the finishing line in just 12.86 seconds, Hely managed to perform well in the women’s 200m competition.
During the competition, the only record which was earned by Otago club was made by Rosie Craven. Carven jumped 2.35m in pole vault for the Otago girls aged 13 to 14 years. Being coached by Paul Gibbson who happened to be ten times winner of New Zealand senior
men’s pole vault, Craven is expected to perform really well for the club in the events which are yet to come as this was the fifth record she managed to make for Otago in past two years.
The young athlete managed to break her first record when she was mere 11. She is the second youngest athlete for breaking an Otago open grade record. Malcolm Richards happened to be the youngest who managed to break a world record in pole vault when he was
mere 10 years old and cleared 2.69m in 1971. Richards also had the privilege of holding the world record at age of 8 for 2.28m and at age of 9 for 2.43m.
During the competition held on Saturday, Andrew Whyte made it for breaking the 50sec barrier for first time ever as he won men’s 400m in just 49.81sec. Second to him was Chad Butson who crossed the finishing line in 51.83 seconds.
The marvellous runner Whyte is just 17 years old and currently is a student at South Otago High School. The guy rejoined athletics early this year when he stood second at South Island Secondary Schools Championship. While sharing the secret to his fitness,
the athlete told the reporter that he usually run around his family cattle farm.
Another depiction of marvellous performance came from 16-year-old Davina Harmann who belongs to Hill City and is an exchange student from Germany, currently spending her one year tenure at Otago Girls’ High School. She won javelin competition and long jump
among the girls aged 15 and 16.
Davina Harmann has developed a repute of talented athlete as she had the privilege to bag the third position at German national Championship held last year. Another prominent performer at the event was Andrew Moore who won men’s long jump competition with
6.31m. Andrew also managed to finish second at men’s junior event at Oceania Games held last month. The final star performer of the event was Rebekah Greene who also belonged to Hill City and made it to breaking the age group record of New Zealand in 1500m
during the world junior championships in Canada organized in last July, piped at the tape during the women’s 400m. Greene’s finishing time was 59.87 sec.
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