Athletics: English adds another NZ title to haul

Sian English
Sian English
Sian English (Otago) once again demonstrated her big-match temperament by winning another national championship gold medal in Wellington yesterday.

English (18) continued her dominance of New Zealand women's junior middle-distance running when she won the under-20 5000m title in 17min 25.82sec.

She took control of the race with a positive approach to win by 5sec from Gabrielle Gray (Canterbury) in 17min 30.95sec. Annette Gray (Waikato) was a distant third in 18min 00.67sec.

It has been a remarkable year for English, who has won three New Zealand individual championship gold medals in the past five months. She won the New Zealand junior road race title at the club national championships in October and the 4km road title at the New Zealand secondary schools championships in December. English is coached by Mike Weddell, who worked out a race plan for her to dominate the race.

Daniel Balchin (Canterbury), who is also coached by Weddell, was second in the senior men's 5000m in 14min 14.39sec. Another former Otago runner Callan Moody (Canterbury) was third in 14min 21.94sec. The race was won by Malcolm Hicks (Auckland) in 14min 13.47sec.

Marshall Hall stormed to his fifth national discus title in six years with a personal-best throw of 58.25m.

Hall is now based in Auckland but still represents Otago Otago AWD athletes added three gold medals. Rory McSweeney won the men's javelin with 42.73m, and Anna Grimaldi the women's 100m in 13.58sec and the 400m.

Rozie Robinson (Otago), who has dominated women's race walking in the past three years, has yet to regain fitness after an operation and finished third in the women's 3km walk in 14min 41.36sec.

Tauranga spinter Joseph Millar won his third consecutive 100m title.

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