Club News
North Island Colgate Games report 11 Jan 2013; updated 14 Jan 2013.
The Colgate Games, held at Inglewood from Friday 4 to Sunday 6 January 2013, were the most successful Colgate Games for Olympic to date. Almost all our 43 athletes achieved personal bests which was a fantastic achievement, and a huge reflection on our exceptional coaches Amanda Goldsmith, Alastair Leslie and Juan McDonald. They had all our athletes in peak form for the three day event that was held in sweltering temperatures. Olympic finished the Games with a 20 medal haul, including 11 golds, 1 silver and 8 bronze - our best result to date and one we hope to better next year in Whangarei.
The standout performers for Olympic were Islam Khaled-Abbas and Ben Murdoch in the 12 boys, Kushla Smith and Marama Butler in the 11 girls and Emerson Yee in the 12 girls. We knew they had the talent combined with a great work ethic to do well at Colgates but not even they would have expected the results they achieved. Islam ended the games with 5 golds and 1 bronze medal winning the 100m, 200m and 400m finals, and two gold medals in the 4 x 100m and the mixed medley relay. His other medal was a bronze in the long jump. He ran PBs in all his races with his long jump a PB as well. It's exciting for Wellington to have such a talented young sprinter and he is fortunate to have his team mates and good friends Ben Murdoch and Finn Leary to train and compete with as they continue to push themselves to their limits. It was great to see two Olympic runners in both the 100m and 200m finals in the 12 boys, with Ben winning the bronze medal in the 200m and just missing out on a medal in the 100m finishing fourth. Finn was 5th in the 400m final, 11th in the 200m and 10th in the 100m. They are an exciting trio to watch and are fortunate to have Amanda as their coach helping them to reach their potential.
Kushla Smith broke a long-standing Wellington record at the end of last season and she looks on track to do the same again this year. She ran extremely strongly at these Games winning the 800m, the 1500m and finishing second in the final of the 400m. She was racing against very good fields with runners from both the South and North Island. This must have motivated her to give it everything in all three of her races achieving 10 second PBs in her 800m and 1500m races running 2m27s and 5m14s respectively and it didn't end there. She then ran a 2 second PB in the 400m to show she has real speed with a time of 64 seconds in the final, and that was on the final day after her other races.
Emerson Yee showed her all round ability at these Games, winning the long jump on her 13th birthday jumping 4.76m and then jumping 1.36m, a 10cm PB, in the high jump to finish 3rd. On the track she made both the 100m and 200m finals. Elsa Keene was another who showed promise in both track and field coming 3rd in the 11 girls' long jump and making the final of the 100m. Marama Butler has been running strongly all season and capped this off by finishing with bronze medals in both the 100m and 200m as well as finishing 5th in the 400m final. Olympic has a strong group of 10, 11 and 12 year old girls in the sprint events with Grace Ohlsson also making the final of the 11 girls' 100m and 200m, and Ashleigh Jones finishing 6th in the 200m final and finishing just outside the final 8 in the 100m and 400m. We also have our up and coming 10 year old group of Rose Lovell, Kaitlyn and Jorja McGlinchey and Eleanor White who did very well in their sprint events and finished off our first day in style, winning the 4 x 100m relay - the same team who won the 9 year old event at last year's Colgates. Rose Lovell decided to give the 400m a go this year and ended up as first reserve for the final running a great race in her heat.
Kushla Smith wasn't the only one from Alastair's training squad to achieve personal bests in the middle distance events. Amelia Harris gave it everything in the 400m showing her strength and speed by finishing 3rd in the final of the 14 girls' 400m. Olivia Aunoa won her first Colgate medal in the 800m running a 10 second PB to finish third in the 12 girls' 800m in a time of 2m31s. She also finished 6th in the 1500m with another PB of 5m28s. Patrick White competed above expectations in the stifling heat on the final day of the Colgates coming third in the 12 boys 1500m running under 5 minutes for the first time in 4m56s. Callum Brooker also ran in the 12 boys and had a great Colgates finishing with 5th placings in both the 800m and 1500m. George Harrington ran personal best times in his 1500m (5m11s) and 800m (2m35s) races finishing 4th and 5th. He then came 5th in the 400m final on the last day. It was a tough weekend for him with heats and finals in all of his events. Keller McDonald made the finals of both the 800m (10th) and 1500m (7th) running personal bests in both events.
In the 14 year old age group and in her final year at Colgates Jess Kerr ran very strongly in the 800m to record a personal best of 2m22s finishing just outside the medal placings in 4th. She had another good race in the 1500m finishing 5th in 4m55s. Alisha Gilchrist also in her final year at Colgates achieved a PB finishing 5th in the 800m in a time of 2m25s and she looked impressive in the 400m too making the final of that event on the first day. It is great to see Amelia, Jess and Alisha still loving their athletics and encouraging each other on both in training and competitions. In his first and final year at Colgates Elroy Lederman ran impressively in both his races finishing 8th in the 1500m in a time of 4m11s and 10th in the 800m in a time of 2m11s. He has only joined Alastair's training squad in the past year and is showing real potential as a track runner for the future. All four of our 14 year olds (Elroy, Amelia, Jess and Alisha) have made the Wellington 14/15 team to compete at the Interprovincials on Masterton's new track later in January. Our other gold medal of the games was won by Sean Beresford in the 1600m walk event in the 13 year old boys' age group.
There were two other good placings in the high jump and discus. Oscar Harris jumped what seemed like twice his height in the 13 boys' high jump beating some very good jumpers from around the country. His clearance jump of 1.55m placed him 6th. In the 12 girls' discus Lateefah Idris continued to show her great form in this event to finish 6th throwing 26.62 metres.
Our relay teams shone through winning four gold medals. Patrick White, Ben Murdoch, Finn Leary and Islam Khaled-Abbas won gold in the 12 boys 4 x 100m by an impressive margin. Callum Brooker, Islam and Ben were also part of our 12 year old mixed medley team along with Olivia Aunoa and Emerson Yee. Islam's blistering final 200m was impressive with all these medley members giving it their all to win gold in this event. With our strong 11 year old girls' squad of sprinters it was difficult to choose the 4 x 100m team. The team for the heats included Danielle and Grace Ohlsson, Marama Butler and Ashleigh Jones. They qualified fastest for the finals the following day. Unfortunately Danielle came down with a stomach virus but Aria Ngarimu slotted into the team for the finals, and they had a very good win following on from their win at Colgates in Tauranga last year. As mentioned above, our other relay gold was won in the 10 year old girls 4 x 100m race. Our 12 girls 4 x 100 relay team of Olivia Aunoa, Lateefah Idris, Ashleigh Morgan and Emerson Yee made the finals and finished 5th, and our young 9 year old girls' 4 x 100m team of Erena Ngarimu, Jessie Morgan, Phoebe Yee and Olivia Ingham had their first experience of a relay at Colgates finishing fourth, which isn't too bad for a team made up mainly of 7 and 8 year olds.
At Colgates the younger 7 to 9 year old age groups don't get to compete in finals - they have to wait until they're 10 for that. We have a good future ahead with this competitive group of athletes, the majority of them competing at their first Colgate Games. Jack Julian and his younger brother William made us all proud with their speed on the track. William (7) ended the games with first placings in the 60m and 100m and 3rd in the 200m while his old brother Jack (8) was 1st in the 100m, 200m and the shot put. Olivia Ingham is a very determined young athlete and gave it everything to finish 2nd in the 60m, the 200m and the long jump. Erena Ngarimu (8) had an exciting win in the long jump on the first day and came 3rd in her 200m event. Breanna Morrison had a brilliant final day winning her long jump division and finishing 3rd in her division of the 60m. And Samantha Smith won her discus event on the final day too. Thomas White placed 3rd in his 60m sprint. Jessie Morgan was unlucky not to end up on the podium with a 4th place in every one of her events.
The support from all the parents and the encouragement all the team members gave to each other was impressive. We have a real team environment at Olympic which makes these events fun. Competitively we had a real presence at the Games this year which is fantastic considering the junior track and field section of Olympic Harriers was only set up seven years ago. This is testament to the wonderful group of volunteer parents we have at our club and the brilliant coaching team of Amanda, Alastair and Juan. Amanda was a huge support over the three days of the Colgates travelling away to support our athletes and between her and Rama Smith there was a lot of noise on the sideline and some husky sounding voices at the end of the three days.
Report by Jo Murray, Junior Track and Field Convenor
The standout performers for Olympic were Islam Khaled-Abbas and Ben Murdoch in the 12 boys, Kushla Smith and Marama Butler in the 11 girls and Emerson Yee in the 12 girls. We knew they had the talent combined with a great work ethic to do well at Colgates but not even they would have expected the results they achieved. Islam ended the games with 5 golds and 1 bronze medal winning the 100m, 200m and 400m finals, and two gold medals in the 4 x 100m and the mixed medley relay. His other medal was a bronze in the long jump. He ran PBs in all his races with his long jump a PB as well. It's exciting for Wellington to have such a talented young sprinter and he is fortunate to have his team mates and good friends Ben Murdoch and Finn Leary to train and compete with as they continue to push themselves to their limits. It was great to see two Olympic runners in both the 100m and 200m finals in the 12 boys, with Ben winning the bronze medal in the 200m and just missing out on a medal in the 100m finishing fourth. Finn was 5th in the 400m final, 11th in the 200m and 10th in the 100m. They are an exciting trio to watch and are fortunate to have Amanda as their coach helping them to reach their potential.
Kushla Smith broke a long-standing Wellington record at the end of last season and she looks on track to do the same again this year. She ran extremely strongly at these Games winning the 800m, the 1500m and finishing second in the final of the 400m. She was racing against very good fields with runners from both the South and North Island. This must have motivated her to give it everything in all three of her races achieving 10 second PBs in her 800m and 1500m races running 2m27s and 5m14s respectively and it didn't end there. She then ran a 2 second PB in the 400m to show she has real speed with a time of 64 seconds in the final, and that was on the final day after her other races.
Emerson Yee showed her all round ability at these Games, winning the long jump on her 13th birthday jumping 4.76m and then jumping 1.36m, a 10cm PB, in the high jump to finish 3rd. On the track she made both the 100m and 200m finals. Elsa Keene was another who showed promise in both track and field coming 3rd in the 11 girls' long jump and making the final of the 100m. Marama Butler has been running strongly all season and capped this off by finishing with bronze medals in both the 100m and 200m as well as finishing 5th in the 400m final. Olympic has a strong group of 10, 11 and 12 year old girls in the sprint events with Grace Ohlsson also making the final of the 11 girls' 100m and 200m, and Ashleigh Jones finishing 6th in the 200m final and finishing just outside the final 8 in the 100m and 400m. We also have our up and coming 10 year old group of Rose Lovell, Kaitlyn and Jorja McGlinchey and Eleanor White who did very well in their sprint events and finished off our first day in style, winning the 4 x 100m relay - the same team who won the 9 year old event at last year's Colgates. Rose Lovell decided to give the 400m a go this year and ended up as first reserve for the final running a great race in her heat.
Kushla Smith wasn't the only one from Alastair's training squad to achieve personal bests in the middle distance events. Amelia Harris gave it everything in the 400m showing her strength and speed by finishing 3rd in the final of the 14 girls' 400m. Olivia Aunoa won her first Colgate medal in the 800m running a 10 second PB to finish third in the 12 girls' 800m in a time of 2m31s. She also finished 6th in the 1500m with another PB of 5m28s. Patrick White competed above expectations in the stifling heat on the final day of the Colgates coming third in the 12 boys 1500m running under 5 minutes for the first time in 4m56s. Callum Brooker also ran in the 12 boys and had a great Colgates finishing with 5th placings in both the 800m and 1500m. George Harrington ran personal best times in his 1500m (5m11s) and 800m (2m35s) races finishing 4th and 5th. He then came 5th in the 400m final on the last day. It was a tough weekend for him with heats and finals in all of his events. Keller McDonald made the finals of both the 800m (10th) and 1500m (7th) running personal bests in both events.
In the 14 year old age group and in her final year at Colgates Jess Kerr ran very strongly in the 800m to record a personal best of 2m22s finishing just outside the medal placings in 4th. She had another good race in the 1500m finishing 5th in 4m55s. Alisha Gilchrist also in her final year at Colgates achieved a PB finishing 5th in the 800m in a time of 2m25s and she looked impressive in the 400m too making the final of that event on the first day. It is great to see Amelia, Jess and Alisha still loving their athletics and encouraging each other on both in training and competitions. In his first and final year at Colgates Elroy Lederman ran impressively in both his races finishing 8th in the 1500m in a time of 4m11s and 10th in the 800m in a time of 2m11s. He has only joined Alastair's training squad in the past year and is showing real potential as a track runner for the future. All four of our 14 year olds (Elroy, Amelia, Jess and Alisha) have made the Wellington 14/15 team to compete at the Interprovincials on Masterton's new track later in January. Our other gold medal of the games was won by Sean Beresford in the 1600m walk event in the 13 year old boys' age group.
There were two other good placings in the high jump and discus. Oscar Harris jumped what seemed like twice his height in the 13 boys' high jump beating some very good jumpers from around the country. His clearance jump of 1.55m placed him 6th. In the 12 girls' discus Lateefah Idris continued to show her great form in this event to finish 6th throwing 26.62 metres.
Our relay teams shone through winning four gold medals. Patrick White, Ben Murdoch, Finn Leary and Islam Khaled-Abbas won gold in the 12 boys 4 x 100m by an impressive margin. Callum Brooker, Islam and Ben were also part of our 12 year old mixed medley team along with Olivia Aunoa and Emerson Yee. Islam's blistering final 200m was impressive with all these medley members giving it their all to win gold in this event. With our strong 11 year old girls' squad of sprinters it was difficult to choose the 4 x 100m team. The team for the heats included Danielle and Grace Ohlsson, Marama Butler and Ashleigh Jones. They qualified fastest for the finals the following day. Unfortunately Danielle came down with a stomach virus but Aria Ngarimu slotted into the team for the finals, and they had a very good win following on from their win at Colgates in Tauranga last year. As mentioned above, our other relay gold was won in the 10 year old girls 4 x 100m race. Our 12 girls 4 x 100 relay team of Olivia Aunoa, Lateefah Idris, Ashleigh Morgan and Emerson Yee made the finals and finished 5th, and our young 9 year old girls' 4 x 100m team of Erena Ngarimu, Jessie Morgan, Phoebe Yee and Olivia Ingham had their first experience of a relay at Colgates finishing fourth, which isn't too bad for a team made up mainly of 7 and 8 year olds.
At Colgates the younger 7 to 9 year old age groups don't get to compete in finals - they have to wait until they're 10 for that. We have a good future ahead with this competitive group of athletes, the majority of them competing at their first Colgate Games. Jack Julian and his younger brother William made us all proud with their speed on the track. William (7) ended the games with first placings in the 60m and 100m and 3rd in the 200m while his old brother Jack (8) was 1st in the 100m, 200m and the shot put. Olivia Ingham is a very determined young athlete and gave it everything to finish 2nd in the 60m, the 200m and the long jump. Erena Ngarimu (8) had an exciting win in the long jump on the first day and came 3rd in her 200m event. Breanna Morrison had a brilliant final day winning her long jump division and finishing 3rd in her division of the 60m. And Samantha Smith won her discus event on the final day too. Thomas White placed 3rd in his 60m sprint. Jessie Morgan was unlucky not to end up on the podium with a 4th place in every one of her events.
The support from all the parents and the encouragement all the team members gave to each other was impressive. We have a real team environment at Olympic which makes these events fun. Competitively we had a real presence at the Games this year which is fantastic considering the junior track and field section of Olympic Harriers was only set up seven years ago. This is testament to the wonderful group of volunteer parents we have at our club and the brilliant coaching team of Amanda, Alastair and Juan. Amanda was a huge support over the three days of the Colgates travelling away to support our athletes and between her and Rama Smith there was a lot of noise on the sideline and some husky sounding voices at the end of the three days.
Report by Jo Murray, Junior Track and Field Convenor