They rounded out a successful showing at the New Zealand track and field championships, adding 13 medals to the region’s haul on Sunday. They had acquired an already impressive 20 medals over the first two days in Wellington.
"Very, very happy with how everybody performed — it was great," the team manager said.
"It wasn’t just the medals. We had athletes there that never thought they were going to be able to compete because they’ve had injuries or illness."
Highlights included an Otago medal clean sweep of the women’s 5000m, Shay Veitch and Felix McDonald winning gold and silver in the men’s long jump and Alexa Duff taking gold (under-18) and silver (under-20) in the women’s javelin.
Kieran Fowler — who competed at the world junior championships in 2006 — won silver in the men’s discus on Sunday and was also a standout, she said.
"It just shows you the calibre of the athletes that are in the team, more than anything."
There were also signs of depth for the future, with Otago producing two men’s 100m and 400m relay teams — the first in several years.
Fergus McLeay, Felix McDonald, Jackson Rogers and John Gerber won gold in the 4x400m relay on Sunday, with their time 3min 14.16sec.
McLeay also picked up silver in the men’s 400m, finishing in 48.11sec.
Ryan Young also nabbed gold in the men’s under-29 triple jump.The 19-year-old jumped 13.70m to claim the national title.
Cole Gibbons (4.28m) and Toby Martin (3.73m) won silver and bronze respectively in the men’s under-20 pole vault.
Gibbons (15.35sec) also won bronze in the 110m hurdles.
In the women’s under-20 triple jump, Bernice Cullen (11.06m) won silver, followed by Neve Beattie (10.63m) winning bronze.
Rebekah Greene (4min 16.23sec) won silver in the women’s 1500m, Zara Geddes (4min 40.47sec) won bronze in the women’s under-20 1500m, while Dyani Shepherd-Oates (54.03m) picked up bronze in the women’s hammer throw.
