Last weekend eighteen athletes attended a compressed version of the Canterbury Athletic Championships at the Nga Puns Wai all-weather track where track events were run as timed finals with the places being found after up to three final heats were run. This event replaced the Championships which had to be postponed in March due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Congratulations to Finlay Neale who broke the Canterbury and St Bede’s College U/16 Pole Vault records with his winning vault of 3.60m. Finlay also broke the College record in the U/16 100m x 840mm hurdles event with his winning time of 14.02 seconds into a strong headwind of -2.2m/s. Finlay also can second in the U/16 200m in a snappy time of 23.46 seconds.

Congratulations also go to Isaac Saywell Barbosa who broke the Canterbury record in the U/14 200m. In an unusual situation, Isaac was only second fastest in the two timed finals, but the winners time was set with an illegal tail wind of +2.8m/s in heat one while Isaac only enjoyed a legal tail wind of 1.1m/s in his heat two. Isaac also had wins in the U/14 400m and High Jump. Isaac also gained third placed in the U/14 4 x 100m relay team along with team mates Charlie Braycotton, Oliver James and James Setter.

Dylan Butler was our other winner taking first place in the U/19 Pole vault with a vault of 2.70m. He also came second in the U/19 300m x 840mm Hurdles and fourth in the U/19 110m x 914mm Hurdles event.

Other placings went to Charlie Applegarth in the U/15 Long Jump with a second placed jump of 5.98m, Luca Fleck in the U/16 800m who was third in a time of 2:20.39, and Peter Gamble in the U/16 5kg Shot Put who was third with his Put of 11.99m.

Full results are attached.

The last event of the year is the New Zealand Secondary Schools Track & Field and Road Race Championships in Inglewood form the 9th to 11th of December. A small team of athletes are preparing to compete. Next year Christchurch will host these championships.

John Gamblin

TIC Athletics