National 3000m titles to Laura Nagel and Hamish Carson
Athletics New Zealand @AthleticsNZ
Hamish Carson played the waiting game at the New Zealand 3000m championships in Wellington at the Capital Classic, pouncing in the home straight to take his third New Zealand title over the distance.
The Rio Olympian sat in the bunch, always handy to the lead, first taken up by Australian Josh Torley and covered all the moves. Aaron Pulford made the first move with two laps to go but he was hauled in by Eric Speakman. Carson was never far from Napier’s Speakman who pushed as hard as he could to get away from Carson, but in the end the Wellingtonian had too much speed and went on to win in 8:05.25.
Speakman was close behind in 8:05.73 and 19 year old Daniel Hoy (Auckland) finished third in 8:10.45, a personal best by almost 12 seconds.
Laura Nagel ran a similar race to Carson, sitting on the pace of national half marathon champion Olivia Burne before launching an attack with a just under a lap to run. The Napier athlete won in 9:22.73, with Burne from Auckland second in 9:27.23 and Esther Keown third in 9:33.28.
It was the 26 year old’s third national title in six months, having won the cross country and 10km road titles in 2016.
Katherine Camp delivered one of the surprises of the meeting, handing Olympian Angie Petty a rare domestic defeat over 800m, bursting through on the inside over the last 50m going on to win in 2:06.03, a new meeting record. Petty finished in 2:06.37 with Katrina Anderson third.
The men’s 800m also saw a meeting record with Australian Alex Rowe winning in 1:48.42 from Otago’s Sam Bremer and Sam Petty (Canterbury).
Shot putter Maddison Wesche set the third new meeting record, winning the women’s shot put with 15.36m, adding over half a metre to her personal best.
Joseph Millar delivered an impressive sprint double of 10.49 for 100m and 21.30 for 200m, while Kelsey Berryman, 100m and Lucy Sheat, 200m split the women’s sprint races. Berryman also won the long jump.
Hannah O’Connor and Jared Lautenslager took out the under 20 1500m races, to repeat their wins from Tuesday in the under 20 3000m championships in Whanganui.
The tricky winds did not favour the pole vaulters but Olivia McTaggart and Nic Southgate were winners at 4.00m and 5.00m respectively.
Media Release (Published without change and with permission) from AthleticsNew Zealand
