Young athletes in fine fettle as new season begins

The Marlborough Children’s Athletics Club’s 2021-22 season is off to a flying start.

At the first Tasman interclub event staged at Saxton Park, Nelson on Sunday, November 7, Marlborough sent a strong team of 50 athletes to compete against Richmond’s 78 athletes and Nelson’s 48 participants. What was also pleasing was the re-emergence of the Takaka club who have not been involved in Tasman events for a number of years. Motueka was also represented well at the event.

Overall results underlined the strength of children’s athletics in Marlborough, with this province taking first place and claiming the prized Hester Shield, through a consistent team effort across the board.

Some individual performances of note came from Isla Tilbury and Neve Mackenzie who both broke a 32-year-old 13 girls 800m record, Isla setting a new record of 2.21.99, taking six seconds of the old record.

Brooke Harper was also outstanding and showed great early season form, coming within 0.4 seconds of the 14 girls 100m Marlborough record, currently held by Lucy Sheat.

In the six year boys long jump, Oliver Gaudin broke the Marlborough record with a jump of 3.33m, another fine effort from such a young competitor.

Despite Covid level two restrictions, registrations for the local club are again up around the 200 mark, which has caused the club to run two sessions to ensure they are staying within the 100 person Covid rules.

The club is now looking forward to the next Tasman event in Nelson on November 21 and have their fingers crossed that the scheduled Colgate Games goes ahead.