Hill City's Ollie O'Sullivan (No 270) leads the elite Otago
men's 3000m championships field at the Caledonian Ground.
The event was won by Ariki's Bryce Morgan (on left) in 8min
42.50sec. Photo by Jane Dawber.
Otago athletics is poised to return to the golden summer
it experienced in the 1970s when its athletes made a mark on
the international scene.
That era was heralded by an increasing intensity of
competition in the 1960s by young athletes determined to
knock experienced senior athletes such as Peter Welsh and Pat
Sidon off their perch.
The same is true today, with teenage athletes challenging the
older runners.
This happened at the Otago 3000m championships last month
when teenage runners filled four of the top five places.
The race was won by 17-year-old Bryce Morgan (Ariki) in a
personal-best time of 8min 42.50sec.
Otago has been represented at recent international events,
with sprinter Todd Johnston (Ariki) contesting the
Commonwealth Youth Games in India.
Nine athletes are currently competing at the Pacific Schools
Games in Canberra, and Toby Flett and Biddy Skerten have been
selected for the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in Sydney
next month.
Otago has a vigorous coaching system, with Joan Merrilees and
her daughter, Megan, getting New Zealand appointments for
international events.
Brent Ward is the country's top sprint coach.
Much the credit for the resurgence of Otago athletics must be
given to Sport Otago's Mike Weddell and the Sports Force
programme taking the athletics message to schools throughout
Otago.
The work of Otago Secondary Schools regional sports director
Des Smith has also played a key role in increasing the
numbers and lifting the standards at secondary school
championships in Otago.
The 1970s boom era really started in 1969 when Sylvia Potts
won the first of her two New Zealand 800m titles and almost
hit the jackpot in the Commonwealth Games 1500m in Edinburgh
the following year when she collapsed 2m from the finish when
heading for the gold medal.
Early in 1971, Dick Tayler became the first Otago runner to
crack the 4min mile barrier when he ran 3min 58.8sec at the
Caledonian Ground.
Tayler's gold medal win in the 10,000m at the 1974
Commonwealth Games has been well documented.
It came because he had been pushed in training and racing by
other Otago athletes in the six years he lived in Dunedin.
Otago had five athletes in the New Zealand team in
Christchurch, with the best performed Sandra McGookin (sixth
in javelin) and Euan Robertson (fifth in 3km steeplechase).
Lorraine Moller, a student at the University of Otago School
of Physical Education at the time, was fifth in the 800m.
She did most of her training with Otago runners in Dunedin.
A year later, Moller and Robertson both finished fifth at the
world cross-country in Morocco.
The New Zealand men won the gold medal in the team event and
the women were second.
It was a successful decade for Robertson who finished sixth
in the 3km steeplechase at the Olympic Games in Montreal in
1976 and fourth in the same event at the Edmonton
Commonwealth Games in 1978.
He was also sixth in the world cross-country in 1977.
During the decade Stuart Melville won five New Zealand senior
track titles.
At the end of the 1970s Chip Dunckley won the national senior
men's cross-country title.
John Campbell, one of the young athletes pushing the
boundaries in the late 1960s, came into his own during the
1980s when, at the age of 39, he became the oldest runner to
win the senior men's cross-country title and finished 12th in
the Olympic marathon in Seoul in 1988.
The number of athletes competing today is also growing, with
44 runners finishing the three 3000m championship races.
The sprints and the throws are other events attracting big
numbers this season and challenging the incumbents.
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