She was back to her sizzling best in the sprints at the Caledonian Ground on Saturday.
The Hill City runner applied pressure around the bend and convincingly won the women's 200m in 26.22sec, ahead of Olivia Tuck (University) in 27.26sec.
Hely (22), an applied science graduate from the University of Otago, did not compete in athletics when she spent 12 months in Vancouver as an exchange student.
She was a promising member of Brent Ward's sprint stable when she won the New Zealand junior women's 200m title in Auckland two years ago and was a member of the gold medal-winning Otago senior women's 4 x 100m relay team.
That was an outstanding championship for Hely, who also won a silver medal in the senior women's 4 x 400m relay team and a bronze medal in the junior women's 100m.
Hely was a bit rusty at the start and was beaten in the women's 100m sprint on Saturday by club-mate Tessa Carnie, who clocked 12.86sec.
Hely ran 13.09sec.
The only Otago record of the day went to Rosie Craven (Hill City), who jumped 2.35m in the pole vault for an Otago girls aged 13 and 14 mark.
Craven is coached by Paul Gibbons, who won 10 New Zealand senior men's pole vault titles from 1991 to 2003.
It was the fifth Otago record in the past two years for Craven (12), a pupil at Balmacewen Intermediate.
She broke her first record as an 11-year-old and is the second-youngest athlete to break an Otago open-grade record.
The youngest was Malcolm Richards (Taieri), who broke a world record in the pole vault for a 10-year-old when he cleared 2.69m in 1971.
He also held the world records as an 8- (2.28m) and 9-year-old (2.43m).
Andrew Whyte (South Otago) broke the 50sec barrier for the first time when he won the senior men's 400m in 49.81sec, 2sec in front of Chad Butson (Southland), who ran 51.83sec.
Whyte (17), a pupil at South Otago High School, returned to athletics early this year and came second at the South Island secondary schools championships.
He keeps himself fit by running around the family cattle farm at Clinton Gorge.
There were a record 40 athletes competing in the 400m races and 51 started in the 1500m.
Sixteen-year-old Davina Hamann (Hill City), an exchange student from Germany who is spending a year at Otago Girls' High School, comfortably won the girls aged 15 and 16 javelin (34.46m) and long jump (4.84m).
She is a talented athlete and finished third in the junior heptathlon at the German national championships last year.
Andrew Moore (Taieri), who has a best jump of 6.84m, won the men's long jump with 6.31m.
He finished second in the junior men's event at the Oceania Games in Cairns last month.
Rebekah Greene (Hill City), who broke a New Zealand age-group record in the 1500m at the world junior championships in Canada last July, was pipped at the tape in the women's 400m by Tuck, who ran 59.82sec.
Greene's time was 59.87sec.
Nicole Bradley (Caversham) won the junior women's shot put with 11.35m.
Rory McSweeny (Taieri) won the AWD javelin with a throw of 37.17m.
