Rebekah Greene's star continues to rise. She added a new page to the Athletics Otago record book at the Caledonian Ground on Saturday.
Greene (17) was in sizzling form in the 3000m and set Otago records in five grades with her time of 9min 21.82sec.
It lowered her own record in the women's aged 17, 18, 19 and 20 grades by 8.87sec.
But the most significant result was to break the senior women's record that Brooke Eddy (Leith) ran eight years ago by 4.44sec.
The Hill City athlete now holds two senior women's records. She lowered the 1500m record to 4min 18.90sec when competing in the world junior athletics championships in Canada last year.
Greene looked strong and attributed her record to the training she has done with coach Jim Baird on the Tomahawk sand hills during the winter months.
Greene's immediate target is to retain her senior 1500m title at the New Zealand secondary schools championships in December.
Her main target this season is to qualify for the world junior track and field championships in Barcelona in August.
Greene's time took her to the top of the New Zealand women's 19 and under ranking list. Laura Nagel (Hawkes Bay) is second with 9min 25.78sec.
But her time was still short of the New Zealand women's record for a 17-year-old. Anne Lardner (Auckland) ran 9min 13.37sec in 1988.
The other top performance in the 3000m came from Sam Bremer (Hill City), who lowered his time by 14.38sec to 9min 16.62sec.
Former Otago athlete Nicole Bradley (Bays Cougars) produced the other highlight on Saturday when she won the women's aged 17 to 19 hammer throw with 49.53m.
It would have been an Otago record for women aged 19 and 20 if Bradley (19), a radiology student in Auckland, had been still registered in Otago.
Bradley, who is now coached by noted throwing coach Didier Poppe, has extended her distance by 6m over the last 12 months. She threw 50.43m in Auckland two weeks ago.
Debbie McCaw (Taieri) holds the Otago women's aged 19 and 20 record with her 1999 throw of 47.17m.
The other significant throwing performances came from Dean Rusbatch (Taieri), who won the men's aged 17 to 19 hammer throw with 50.13m, and Hamish Finnie (Hill City), who won the discus in the same grade with 42.65m.
