WAIS Athletes Excel at Melbourne Track Classic
WAIS athlete Kim Mickle has scored an impressive comeback win in the javelin competition at the Melbourne Track Classic.
Mickle seriously injured her thumb towards the end of 2009 and had initially thought she would be unable to compete at this year’s national championships in April. But after responding well to treatment, the 25 year-old made a strong return to competition last week, to win the javelin competition with a best throw of 58.22m.
The throw also earned Mickle an A-qualifier and reaffirmed her status as Australia’s leading thrower ahead of April’s Australia Athletics Championships, to be held in Perth.
Mickle’s success bookmarked what was another impressive campaign from the WAIS track and field contingent, with four athletes claiming wins.
WAIS sprinters Jody Henry and Ben Offereins continued their incredible seasons with the Lyn Foreman coached pair both winning over high quality fields.
Henry made the switch from the 100m sprint to the longer 200m and 400m disciplines following the move to work with WAIS mentor Foreman and has enjoyed career best form as a result. The Shoalwater resident stormed home in 52.41secs to beat Olympian Tamsyn Lewis and will now be one of the athletes to watch at nationals.
Offereins has been making headlines since last year gatecrashing the World Championship team that won bronze in the men’s 4x400m relay in Berlin. In 2010, Offereins has proved it was no mere flash in the pan stringing together a series of wins in the Australian Athletics Tour.
The 23 year-old claimed victory in the 400m in Melbourne ahead of Sean Wroe and American David Neville in a time of 45.73secs.
WAIS Olympic and World Champion pole vaulter Steve Hooker had – by his own illustrious standards – an off night despite winning the men’s pole vault competition.
Hooker effortlessly cleared 5.56m at his first attempt before faltering at 5.85m in ideal conditions.
The 27-year-old captain of the Australian Flame said he was disappointed by the result but would take positives away from the meet.
“Up until I was out of the competition I thought it was still going to be a big night so it’s just a bit of a shock but I guess that happens, I’ll have to spend a bit of time with Alex (WAIS coach Alex Parnov) and look at the video and work out exactly what was going on because I felt like I should have been clearing those bars,” he said.
“I felt like I was running in and taking off much, much better than I was in Sydney so when that happens and you don’t get the result it’s sort of hard to understand what exactly has happened but I’m going to look at the positives out of this one, my run-up speed was good, my plant was better, I was taking off further out, all those things I wanted to do in this competition but unfortunately the result just didn’t come.”
“I still think it was a good trial run for world indoors, it was very still conditions so it’s a good opportunity to test the poles I’ll be needing, the run-ups I’ll be using indoors, so there’s a lot of positives to take out of it, just not a positive result.”
The Melbourne Track Classic brought to a close the 2010 Australian Athletics Tour, with all attention now turning to the Go for 2 & 5 Australian Athletics Championships and Commonwealth Games selection trials to be held in Perth from April 16-18.