Athletics: Grimaldi smashes long jump record

Anna Grimaldi
Anna Grimaldi
Taieri's Anna Grimaldi (17) set a New Zealand paralympic record in the long jump at the Caledonian Ground on Saturday.

Despite blustery winds, which resulted in the pole vault being canned, and the odd heavy shower, Grimaldi's 4.96m jump shattered the existing record by 12cm.

Grimaldi actually had jumps of 5.02m and 4.98m but, with a 3.4m per second wind blowing, they did not count.

The Taieri teenager is no stranger to breaking records. She broke 16 AWD records in the F47 class last season, and won eight paralympic gold medals at the national championships.

Grimaldi also finished third in the women's 15-17 years 100m, clocking 13.71sec. Joccoaa Palmer (15, Taieri) won in 13.02sec and Ruby Coers (17) of Aspiring, finished second in 13.25sec.

With the wind getting up to 4.5m per second at times, several athletes recorded personal-best times that will not go down in the books.

Caversham's Ben Anderson (23) continued to dominate the men's 1500m event in the early stages of the season, winning in a time of 4min 4.04sec.

Anderson's time was significantly slower than his PB (3min 52.26sec), which he set a fortnight ago, but it was his second-fastest time of the season.

Anthony Trainor (20) of Ariki, gave Anderson all he could handle for the majority of the race, but the Caversham runner made a move 120m from the finish line to edge Trainor by 3.76sec.

Hill City-University's Oliver Chignell (16) won the men's 15-17 years 1500m in 4min 20.67sec, pipping Dylan Forde (15, Winton) by 0.48sec.

Rozie Robinson (24), representing Otago and Hill City-University for the last time before transferring to Brighton Olympic in Christchurch, finished second in the 20km walk at the national long-distance walking championships in Auckland.

Robinson finished in 1hr 54min 39sec, behind Alana Barber (Auckland) who won in 1hr 39min 1sec.

By Robert van Royen. 

 

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