Marshall Hall (Taieri) is back. He has recovered from the setbacks that halted his winter build-up and is ready to defend his national title.
Hall (23), a psychology and commerce student at the University of Otago, has won the New Zealand senior discus title for the last three years.
Hall is confident of claiming his fourth national title in Auckland at the end of March.
He easily won the discus during the interclub meeting at the Caledonian Ground on Saturday with a throw of 51.75m to go top of the national rankings. Brent Newdick (Auckland) trails him by 5m.
His sequence of throws were: foul, 50.94m, foul, 51.23m, 51.75m, foul. Two of the foul throws were over 53m.
Hall broke a bone in his left foot during winter training which sidelined him for six weeks. He then lost more time when an ingrown hair on his right knee festered and he was admitted to hospital and out of action for another five weeks.
It was only his third competitive outing for the season and his coach, Raylene Bates, was happy with his progress.
"Marshall has come back strong and is in heavy training at the moment," she said. "It would be a big call to throw 60m but 58m is within his reach if he can iron out a few small technical problems."
If Hall does this he would break the Otago senior men's record of 56.86m held by Robin Tait (Ariki) since 1966.
Hall threw his personal best distance of 53.77m in Los Angeles during a four-meet tour of the United States in April.
He competes in an international meeting in Christchurch on Saturday and has big meets in Sydney next month and in Melbourne in early March. Hall will travel to the United Kingdom in May for pre-Olympic meetings.
Holly Robinson (Taieri) showed she is on target for the London Paralympics when she won the junior women's discus with a throw of 32.63m.
Stephen Rusbatch (Leith) set an Otago men's aged 45 to 49 record when he won the Otago masters weight pentathlon title with 2414 points. His distances were: hammer throw (28.74m), shot put (9.28m), discus (25.23m), javelin (29.35m), heavy weight (10.57m,).
Michael Scholten (Taieri) was second with 2240 points and Jarrod Adams (Hill City) third with 1221 points in the age graded competition.
Scholten broke a New Zealand record in the hammer throw with 34.41m in the 30 to 34 age group.
The other Otago record went to Eirlys Bond (Alexandra), who threw her discus 38.40m for an Otago girls aged 13 and 14 record.
French runner Yann Senjaric, on holiday in New Zealand, won the men's 400m hurdles in 54.71sec.
