Anna-Lisa Uttley (Bayfield) battled the rain and wind to shoot up to fourth on the national ranking list at the Caledonian Ground on Saturday.
Uttley (15) broke the girls under-16 3000m record at the annual Otago and Southland secondary schools athletics championships in a race run in squally rain and into a strong southerly wind.
Her time of 10min 09.34sec broke the record Christina Taylor (Southland Girls) set last year by 16sec and marked her as a runner with international potential.
Uttley, a member of Jim Baird's training squad, improved her own time by 12sec.
She will be a strong medal contender in her age group at the New Zealand track and field championships at Wellington next weekend.
Her training partner, Rebekah Greene (St Hildas), is second on the national ranking list in the 3000m with 9min 52.83sec and will contest the event at Wellington.
Greene (15) convincingly won the girls under-16 800-1500m double on Saturday with the fastest girls times of the day.
She won the 800m by a massive 70min a time of 2min 21.96sec.
Greene was more cautious in the combined under-16 and senior girls 1500m and stayed with the pack until the bell and then took off to beat Taylor by 3sec with a time of 4min 54.84sec.
Hamish Finnie (John McGlashan) broke an Athletics Otago boys aged 16 shot put record by 76cm with his put of 15.05m when he won the senior boys event.
The old record was held by James Simpson (Taieri) since 1997.
Finnie, who has been competing in athletics since the age of 8, has missed most of the season because of a stress fracture in his back.
Finnie also won the senior boys discus with a throw of 41.02m when he beat Jesse Muir (Kings) by 7m.
Nicole Bradley (Queens) won the senior girls shot put (10.13m) and discus (32.48m) double.
One of the best performances of the day came from Savannah Bruin (Central Southland College), who won the girls under-16 high jump with a leap of 1.60m in the difficult wind conditions.
It was just 2cm short of the 1985 record that was jumped by Tania Murray (Logan Park).
Murray went on to win the women's high jump gold medal at the 1990 Commonwealth Games at Auckland.
Matthew Robinson (Southland Boys) impressed when winning the senior boys 100m (11.47sec) and 400m (51.42sec) double.
In other notable performances, Gus Kerr (Dunstan) won the senior boys 110m hurdles in a close battle with Daniel Goodman (Otago Boys) in 16.13sec, Guy Woodhouse (Kavanagh) won the boys under-16 100m (11.12sec) and 200m (22.95sec) double, Kane Russell (Otago Boys) the senior boy javelin (51.66m), Toby Flett (Otago Boys) the senior boys 200m (22.19sec), Leesa Bathgate (Otago Girls) the senior girls 100m hurdles (16.39sec), John Gilmour (Otago Boys) the senior boys long jump (6.25m) and Ricky White (Sara Cohen) the AWD 100m (13.05sec), 200m (26.64sec), shot put (9.20m) and long jump (4.64m).
