Danica Davies (St Hilda's) started throwing the discus for fun last year. She is now the Otago secondary schools record-holder in the event.
At the Caledonian Ground on Saturday, Davies (16) won the senior girls discus with a throw of 37.13m at the annual interschool championships.
It beat by 1.98m the old record Melissa Winter (St Kevin's) threw in 2003.
Davies (16) began training for the heptathlon last year with coaches Megan Gibbons and Joan Merrilees, and this meant she had to brush up her discus skills.
She was coached in the discus by specialist throwing coach Howden Finnie during the winter months and has improved her distance in the event by a massive 4m.
This helped her to improve her heptathlon score by 400 points when she won the bronze medal at the New Zealand youth championships in Auckland last month.
Davies dominated the senior girls throwing events at the annual Otago secondary schools athletics by also winning the javelin (27.53m) and shot put (10.58m).
She was second in the 100m hurdles (15.63sec), which was won by Christina Ashton (Queen's) in 14.84sec. They were both faster than the old record in the hurdles but the wind reading ruled it out.
Bradley Tarleton (Taieri College) smashed the senior boys hammer throw record by a massive 4.51m with his winning throw of 52.55m.
His sequence of throws was: 52.55m, foul, 51.83m. It places him second on the national youth ranking list for the event.
The old record was thrown by Dean Rusbatch (Otago Boys') three years ago.
Front-running Ollie Chignall (John McGlashan) broke the boys under-16 3000m record by 21sec with his winning time of 9min 03.82sec.
The old record was run by Toby Batchelor (John McGlashan) in 2010.
Chignall made his intentions known from the start and left the field struggling behind him as he ran the first lap in 66sec. He won the race by 1min 6sec from Anton Fitzgerald (Roxburgh Area).
His 1000m splits were 2min 54sec, 3min 6sec and 3min 3sec.
Chignall was equally convincing when winning the 1500m in 4min 19.23sec. It was just 1.06sec short of the record.
It was a high standard of athletics from the 560 competitors, with 11 records broken.
Caitlyn George (St Hilda's) dominated the girls under-16 sprints and won the 100m in a record time of 12.35sec. The old record of 12.68sec was run by Bethany Struthers (Taieri College) in 2006.
George was more than 1sec faster than the old record in the 200m but the wind reading was marginally over the allowable limit.
There was rather a bizarre result in the girls under-15 long jump when Yvonne van Baarle (Blue Mountain College) won the title with 4.94m.
''Hopefully we can kind of dual it out.''
She passed the old mark twice but could not claim the record because the wind reading was marginally over the allowable limit at the time.
The record was instead credited to Leonie Palmer (St Hilda's), who came second in the event. Her jump of 4.84m beat the old record by 2cm and was within the allowable wind limit.
Felix McDonald (King's) broke the boys under-16 400m record with his time of 52.23sec. He was also under the old mark with his winning time in the 100m hurdles of 13.60sec but the wind reading ruled out the record.
The St Hilda's under-16 girls 4 x 100m relay team of Jessica Harwood, Haley Shallard, Aria Park and Caitlyn George broke the record with a winning time of 50.97sec.
The other records were: Hamish Mears (Taieri College), boys under-14 discus (40.35m); Hugh McLeod-Jones (Otago Boys'), boys under-16 discus (45.12m); Sam Gouverneur (King's), boys under-14 400m (54.79sec).
Sam Kirk (Taieri College) gained the Roberts Cup for winning the senior boys high jump with a leap of 1.75m. The cup was donated by the Caledonian Society in 1937 for the event and is contested annually.
