Athletics: Whiting raises medal hopes

Paula Whiting (Hill City), who has never won a medal at national athletics championships, is expected to break her duck at Wellington next week.

Whiting (20), a physiotherapy student at the University of Otago, moved into a top-three ranking when she won the senior women's 1500m at an interclub meeting at the Caledonian Ground last night.

She lowered her best time by 6sec when she ran 4min 28.85sec to beat training partner and clubmate Rachel Kingsford by 8sec.

Kingsford also ran a personal best time of 4min 36.83sec.

Both athletes are trained by former New Zealand 800m champion Kevin Ross, by email, from Wellington.

Whiting grew up in Alexandra and was a promising Central Otago athlete before shifting to Dunedin three years ago, for her university studies.

She has accepted an athletics scholarship at Tulsa University in Oklahoma and will move to the United States in August.

The junior men's 1500m also produced fast times.

Daniel Balchin (Caversham) broke four minutes for the first time, winning in 3min 59.06sec, from clubmate Tony Payne, who also ran a personal best 4min 05.25sec.

Anna Smythe (Hill City) won the women's 100m in 12.13sec from Fiona Hely (Hill City) 12.80sec.

Hely won the 200m in 25.58sec.

Todd Mansfield (Taieri) won the men's 200m in 21.87sec and 16-year-old Toby Flett (Hill City) moved to fifth in the national 16-year-old rankings when he ran a personal best 22.35sec for second place.

Todd Johnston (Ariki) came back to his best form when he won the junior 100m in 11.23sec.

He has won seven medals at national championships but an individual gold has always eluded him.

This could change in the men's under-17 grade at Wellington next week.

Other top performances last night came from Jerram Huston (Hill City) men's shot put, 13.52m; Matthew Aitken (Hill City) AWD shot put, 7.97m; and Lyndon Brown (Caversham) men's 3000m steeplechase, 9min 41.60sec.