American Kent Centers (Hill City-University) capped off a remarkable return to athletics in Auckland on Saturday.
Centers (29), a Dunedin tree feller and wood turner, won a bronze medal in the senior men's decathlon with a score of 5559 points.
The gold medal was won by former Otago athlete Scott McLaren (North Harbour Bays), who won his other national decathlon title when he represented Otago in 2003.
Jarrod Adams (Hill City-University) won his first national individual gold medal in the masters decathlon after competing in the sport for 27 years. His score was 4177 points.
Centers was a talented athlete when he lived in the United States and excelled in the college system. He has lived in New Zealand for six years but has only returned to athletics this season.
His best events when he competed in the college system in the United States were the pole vault, high jump and 110m hurdles and those were his best events last weekend. He jumped 4m in the pole vault, 1.92m in the high jump and ran 16.5sec in the 110m hurdles.
He clinched the bronze medal with a gutsy run of 4min 42sec in the 1500m to push two-time former champion Callum McConachy (Manawatu) into fourth place.
McLaren (30) won the gold medal with a personal-best score of 7750 points and was just 250 points short of the qualifying standard of 8000 points for the world championships in Moscow.
He equalled his personal best with a pole vault of 4.80m and ran a personal-best decathlon time of 10.99sec in the 100m. His other high points score was his 1.95m in the high jump. McLaren competed in pain after injuring his adductor muscle during training last week.
Adams (36), a mathematics teacher and athletics coach at Otago Girls' High School, had a personal-best high jump with 1.49m.
His only other gold medal at a New Zealand championships was as a member of the Otago senior men's 4x400m relay team in 2003.
In his younger days, Adams specialised in sprinting but he now enjoys the challenge of competing in all the events.
''I only had limited time to build up my fitness so I focused on improving my ability in the technical events,'' he said.
Adams' individual results in the decathlon at Auckland were: 100m (12.14sec), long jump (5.25m), shot put (11.39m), high jump (1.49m), 400m (56.87sec), 110m hurdles (22.78sec), discus (28.82m), pole vault (2.15m), javelin (30.70m), 1500m (5min 43.87sec), 4177 points.
