NZ youngsters heartened by performances at IPC

NZ youngsters heartened by performances at IPC Athletics World Championships

It was tough for both Jess Hamill (Invercargill) and Matthew Lack (Opotiki) at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Christchurch today, but both were heartened by their performances looking towards the London Paralympics next year.

Both were the youngest in their respective fields. Hamill’s T34 shot put event produced two world records while Lack was in one of the classiest fields of the day in the T54 800m. Hamill, aged 20, finished fifth with a throw of 7.34m which was just shy of her personal best but better than her silver medal performance at the Commonwealth Games last year.

Lack, aged 19, was also outside his personal best but finished in eighth place less than two seconds from the winner in 1:39.09secs. “My aim was to make the final which is pleasing, but I’m disappointed not to have done better today.”

Lack, who drew the outside lane, did not have the initial speed and had to work hard to latch on to the back of the bunch as they broke from their lanes.

“Today does give me confidence for London and the future. They went tremendously quick and I had to work just so hard through that first 250 metres,” he said.

Hamill admitted to being extremely tired at the end of her event which lasted well over two hours.

Wellington’s Rory McSweeney also took a big step towards London with his throw of 42.71m in the F44 javelin. This beat his previous personal best by four metres, and having only taken up competitive throwing a year ago, he is looking to continue this improvement.

It was not such a good day for world record holder Tim Prendergast in the men’s T13 1500m final. The Wellingtonian had pulled a calf muscle three weeks ago and while he was confident he had recovered it seized on him again yesterday.

“It tightened again during the race and I just couldn’t stretch out. I have the 800m on later in the week so I didn’t want to seriously damage it before then,” he said.

New Zealand does not have any athletes competing tomorrow. The big race of the morning will be the 200m T44 where South African Oscar Pretorius is confident of lowering his world record. The race is at 10.26am.

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