Southlanders ready for 'biggest and most exciting athletic event'
How will Southland athletes stack up at the 2024 New Zealand Secondary Schools Track & Field Championships?
Southland schools have delivered outstanding results at past New Zealand Secondary Schools Athletics Championships. Will this year’s teams be the best yet? Maybe - but the only certainty at these champs is the lack of certainty. Lance Smith takes a look at Southland’s chances.
Anything can happen at what is the biggest and most exciting athletic event on the summer calendar - the New Zealand Secondary Schools Track & Field Championships to be held in Timaru next week.
The country’s best high school-age athletes will be there, as will talented rugby, soccer, rowing, netballers etc capable of performing well at a national level on the athletics stage.
That’s the excitement of the secondary school champs; you can always expect the unexpected and with over 1000 entrants. The unknowns and unexpected often feature in the results.
Several Southlanders will be worth watching, including returning medallists from last year and those high on the current national rankings. (Athletics New Zealand rank every athlete who meets a certain standard in performance order for every event).
Six of the Southland entrants have represented NZ teams overseas this year. They are Siena Mackley, Millie McFadzien, Ollie Davis, Connor Gilliland, Carlie Scherp, and James McLeay.
Returning medallists are Abby O’Boyle (Verdon), Millie McFadzien (St Peters Gore), Siena Mackley (WHS), Max McGregor (Māruawai College) and Ollie Davis (CSC).
McFadzien will find it tougher this time around, having graduated from junior to senior ranks, while O’Boyle and McGregor are still juniors and thus top of their grade.
Ollie Davis heads the senior long jump rankings (the event he won last year) but knee problems have hampered his build up this time around. Even so, he will still be a threat.
In the junior jumps, look to Will Brown (James Hargest College) to feature in both the high and long.
Abby O’Boyle is focussing on the 1500m and 800m, events she medalled in at the Athletics NZ champs last March (800m gold, 1500m bronze). However, she won’t have it all her own way.
There are five girls in the 800m within a second of Abby’s best time and five within a couple of seconds of her best 1500m. It looks to be two close and exciting races with the title going to the most determined. Abby is one of the most determined young athletes around.
Max McGregor won the junior steeplechase last year but this time his focus is the 800m. With the fastest 800m time for his age this season, a top placing is very likely.
What else he will do is still to be decided – he has entered the road race, steeplechase and 1500m but the schedule is not conducive to doing well in all of them.
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Wakatipu HS has two top distance prospects - Siena Mackley and James Weber.
Siena was bronze medallist in the senior 3000m last year and certainly has the credentials to improve on that this time around. She is also entered in the 1500m. James Weber showed he will be capable of a top placing in the 3000m and/or 1500m after his brilliant mile win recently at Dunedin.
While out of the medals last year, Connor Gilliland (CSC) can’t be discounted this time in his favourite event, the 110m hurdles where he is ranked in the top three nationally.
Carlie Scherp (SGHS) wants to make her final appearance at a secondary school championship a good one and her recent shot and discus performances suggest she is more than capable of doing so.
Bohdi Trevor-Smith (Fiordland College) has also shown promising throws form and should feature in the senior shot and discus.
Two newcomers to secondary level athletics are Sam Moore (Christ’s College) and Hunter Flowers (SBHS). Both are worth watching, Sam in the junior steeplechase and Hunter in the junior 1500m, with both sure to be near or at the front in the Yr 9 3k road race. (While Sam goes to a Christchurch school he is every inch a Southlander and has a Southland coach, so is not out of place in a Southland focussed preview).
If anyone can be called favourite it has to be James McLeay (SBHS).
The 18-year-old had a disappointing 1500m final last year but made up for it by winning the national U20 mile title a few weeks later, medalling at the Australian champs then gaining selection to the world U20 championships in Peru where he made the 1500 final. His 1500 PBm tops the national U20 and U18 rankings. Being favourite is no guarantee, but there’s every chance he will be the next Southland athlete to win the senior 1500m, (the blue ribbon event of the champs) since Jordan Rackham (also SBHS) 10 years ago.