Seven medals for Otago on day one

Oli Chignell.
Oli Chignell.
Otago claimed seven medals on day one of the athletics national championships in Hamilton yesterday.

Holly Robinson, Oli Chignell and Alexander Brown all claimed golds.

Robinson threw 42.33m to take first in the women's para javelin, beating out fellow Otago competitor Caitlin Dore, who threw 21.87m.

Both throw in different classifications, however, the results are weighted to take into account the level of impairment.

By that measure Robinson finished with a percentage of 98.39% and Dore came in second at 57.76%.

Meanwhile Chignell won a tight 5000m race, running a time of 14min 31.53sec to beat Peter Wheeler by 11-hundredths of a second.

The run was impressive from the 20-year-old, who was in his first year in the senior grade.

Brown was the only competitor in the under-20 3000m race walk, claiming the title in 14min 58.83sec.

Dore claimed her second silver medal, in the women's para-shot put, with a distance of 8.71m.

That saw her trail the first-placed Lisa Adams, who thre 9.88m, but was comfortably ahead of the rest of the field.

Drew Cairney ran a time of 8min 48.39sec to finish third in the men's under-18 3000m.

Sammy Burke also claimed a bronze, with a time of 17min 36.50sec seeing her finish 45 seconds ahead of fourth-placed Navajo Prentice.

Meanwhile Todd Bates and Cameron Miller both finished fourth in the senior men's hammer throw and under-20 long jump respectively.

Tara McNally had the fastest qualifying time in the women's under-18 300m hurdles.

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