Club team picks up medals at NI games

A small group of 10 athletes from Palmerston North Athletics Club punched above their weight, returning with seven medals from the North Island Colgate Games in Auckland.

Nearly 1600 athletes competed in the three-day event, which was held last week.

Stephanie Dickins was the club's top medallist, winning medals in all four of her events.

Dickins started with a dominant performance in the 14-year girls 400m, winning in 59.86 seconds. Dickins' other medals were silver in the 800 metres in 2min 21.62sec and silver in the 1500 metres in 5min 01.87sec.

Dickins also won bronze in the high jump with a leap of 1.49m.

Sisters Kara and Zia Macdermid ran excellent races in the 800 and 1500 metres.

Kara won the 12-year girls 1500 metres in 4min 50.87sec, six seconds clear of Te Aroha's Meg Skilton. This was the fastest time across all female grades and was achieved after Kara put in a strong burst mid-race. Kara was also third in the 800m in 2min 23.11sec. Zia Macdermid won silver in the 10-year girls 1500m in 5min 19.43sec and was fourth in the 800m in 2min 38.70sec, just 0.56sec off bronze.

Courtney Walker also performed highly, and came very close to medals in the 14-year girls 80 metres hurdles, coming fourth in 13.38 sec, just seven hundreds of a second behind bronze medallist Rochelle Newdick, of Papamoa. Newdick is the sister of international decathlete Brent Newdick. Daniel Churchill finished seventh in the 13-year boys hurdles.

Jack Cartridge is clearly a talented athlete for the future, with several good performances including 69.50sec for the 11-year boys 400 metres. Gemma Decker threw 22.71 metres in the discus and both Molly Noema-Barnett and Melissa Blackwood produced some fine throws. Erica Dekker, the youngest in the team, performed well among the eight-year girls.

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