Danica Davies (17) was so proud of her shot put gold medal she slept with it around her neck on Sunday night.
The St Hilda's Collegiate year 12 pupil ''surprised everyone'' at the national secondary school athletics championships in Wanganui at the weekend to win the senior girls shot put.
Coached by Howden Finnie, Davies smashed her personal best by a metre to win with a 14.32m throw.
While her winning throw was well short of Valerie Adams' 2001 record (16.02m), it was 13cm clear of second-placed Ofa Hakeai, of Auckland Girls' Grammar School.
St Hilda's sports co-ordinator Trish Conrad said Davies came from ''left field'' to win the event, and even surprised herself.
''She slept with the medal on; she was very excited. She works really, really hard,'' Conrad said.
Davies was also a part of the St Hilda's senior 4x100m B relay team, which won gold after barely qualifying for the final.
With the A team failing to qualify, Conrad made the ''tough'' decision to switch Mikayla Thorn with Caitlyn George, who had been in the A team.
The switch proved to be a master stroke as George held off Napier Girls' High School's Shannon Gearey down the home straight to win gold.
George, a promising sprinter, had earlier won bronze in the senior 200m race in 26.22sec, while she just missed out on a medal running into a strong head wind in the 100m.
Columba College's A team, which qualified third for the 4x100m relay final, was second behind St Hilda's at the final baton change, but Madaline Spence was pipped by a fast-finishing Napier Girls' and Cambridge High School to finish fourth.
Spence did live up to her favourite tag in the 300m hurdle, winning gold in 43.89sec.
Her winning time was just 0.04sec slower than her record-breaking time last month, when she broke Megan Gibbons' (nee Merrilees) almost 24-year-old Otago record at the Caledonian.
Hanna English (17, Columba) won gold in the girls 3000m in 10min 8.81sec, holding off Emerson Deverell (King's College) in a tight sprint to the finish.
English's time was well short of the record set by St Hilda's pupil Rebekah Greene (9min 23.42sec) in 2011, and her PB, 10min 0.43sec.
The Columba College pupil had been aiming for the 1500m-3000m double, but English was tripped up down the back straight in the 1500m race as she was moving into position for a strong finish.
English managed to get back to her feet and chase the leading three runners down, before winning a hard-earned bronze after Roisin Pearson (Napier Girls') fell over a couple of metres from the line.
Bradley Tarleton (17), of Taieri, was the only Otago male to come home with gold, winning the boys senior 5kg hammer throw.
Tarleton, coached by Raylene Bates, was more than 5m better than second-placed Ben Power, of Hutt International Boys' School, winning with a 58.66m heave.
Anna Grimaldi (17) of Bayfield, matched her effort from a year ago, winning four gold medals in AWD events - 100m, 200m, 400m and long jump - and setting national secondary school records in all of them.
She set a New Zealand record in the 200m to add to her national long jump record, winning in 28.24sec.
Her 100m time was 14.01sec, 0.6sec faster than a year ago. She then knocked more than 2sec off her old 400m record, finishing in 64.92sec, before extending her national long jump record by 9cm to 5.05m.
Christina Ashton, of Queen's, the favourite for the 100m hurdles, came up short in her bid for gold having qualified second for the final.
Running into a 3.5m per second wind, the top-ranked Ashton was pipped by Pheobe Edwards, of Wellington East Girls' College, for gold by 0.06sec.
Elizabeth Jones (18), of St Hilda's, competing in her last secondary school championships, finished with a pair of bronze medals in the senior girls discus and hammer throw.
In total, Otago athletes won 20 medals - nine gold, four silver and seven bronze - down from last year's haul of 32, when 12 gold, 10 silver and 10 bronze were won.
- Robert van Royen
Otago medallists
NZ secondary schools championships
Gold: Danica Davies (St Hilda's), senior girls shot put; Madaline Spence (Columba), girls 300m open hurdles; Hanna English (Columba), senior girls 3000m; Bradley Tarleton (Taieri); St Hilda's 4x100m senior relay B team (Danica Davies, Joccoaa Palmer, Leonie Palmer, Caitlyn George); Anna Grimaldi (Bayfield), girls senior AWD 100m, AWD 200m, AWD 400m, girls senior AWD long jump.
Silver: Christina Ashton (Queen's), senior girls 100m hurdle; Adriana Mawhinney (Dunstan), senior girls triple jump, Columba College's 4x100m junior A relay team (Chenoa Metua, Ellie Duncan, McKayler Moore, Meg Breen); David White (King's) boys senior AWD long jump.
Bronze: Elizabeth Jones (St Hilda's), girls senior hammer, girls senior discus; Caitlyn George (St Hilda's), senior girls 200m; Rory O'Neill (King's), senior boys 200m; Caitlin Kenny (St Hilda's), senior girls high jump; Hanna English, senior girls 1500m, Otago Boys' junior 4x100m relay team (Taine S Te Whata, Tim Horton, Liam Turner, Matthew Ogle).
