February's Australian championships will be a stepping stone for Roseanne Robinson (Hill City) in her bid to qualify for the world walking championships in Russia.
Robinson (20), a physical education student at the University of Otago, beat the qualifying standard for the Australian championships by a massive 4min 17sec when she won the 20km trial in Palmerston North last week in 1hr 49min 43sec.
The international competition in Hobart could help her reach the world championship qualifying standard of 1hr 42min.
"I'm aiming to get close to that mark," Robinson said.
"If I can get under 1hr 45min I might get selected for Russia as a development athlete."
The 20km time lowered Robinson's Otago senior women's record by 1min 41sec.
Robinson also won her sixth national senior women's title at Palmerston North in the 15km in a personal best time of 1hr 21min 05sec. She was followed home by Lesley Cantwell (1hr 29min 26sec) and Allanah Parker (1hr 34min 35sec). Robinson continued her fast pace to the 20km mark.
She was in recovery mode when she won the women's 2km track walk at a cold Caledonian Ground on Saturday in 9min 32sec.
Senior Otago athletes had planned to compete at the Athletics Southland meeting at Invercargill but snow caused the meeting to be cancelled.
Track athletes joined the normal children's meeting at the Caledonian Ground on Saturday morning and throwing events were held in the afternoon.
Dean Rusbatch (Taieri) won the men's 19 hammer throw with 51.19m from Hamish Finnie (Hill City) 41.83m.
It was a personal best throw by Rusbatch (17) with the 6kg implement. His best performance last season came at the New Zealand championships at Dunedin when he won the men's 19 bronze medal with 44.93m. He increased this to 50.13m two weeks ago and his improvement this season is already a massive 6.26m.
Rusbatch has a best throw of 51.44m with the lighter 5kg implement that he will use at the New Zealand secondary schools championships at Wellington next month. He was second in the senior boy's event last year.
His father, Steve Rusbatch (Taieri), inspired by his son's performance, set an Otago masters men's aged 45 to 49 weight pentathlon record with 2333 points.
Michael Scholten (Taieri) broke New Zealand and Otago masters aged 30 to 34 records in the discus (30.51m) and weight pentathlon (2116 points).
Joan Merrilees (Taieri) set two Otago Masters women's aged 60 to 64 records in the hammer throw (23.61m) and weights throw (9.31m).
The hammer throw is one of the most technical events in athletics and usually has small entries. But it was different on Saturday with an Otago record of 17 throwers competing.
The oldest competitor was 76-year-old Jack Hibbard (Taieri), who won the men's aged 75 to 79 event with a throw of 19.54m in his first athletics compe-tition for five years.
Rory McSweeny (Taieri), who represented New Zealand at the Paralympic world championships last year, won the men's javelin with 42.33m.
The best sprinting came from Sophie Napper (Taieri), who won the women's 19 sprint double in the 100m (13.19sec) and 200m (27.63sec), and Mackenzie Haugh (Hill City), who won the men's aged 15 and 16 100m in 12.31sec.
Rebekah Greene (Hill City) won the women's 800m in 2min 13.37sec and clubmate Ben Jowsey the men's 19 race in 2min 01.45sec.
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