Valerie Vili opens season in top form

World Champion Valerie Vili nailed her opening competition of the season with an emphatic shot put of 19.24m at Auckland's Mt Smart Stadium last evening.


In her first competition in New Zealand since taking the world title in Osaka in August and competing at the world athletic final in Stuttgart Vili opened with 19.18m followed with 19.12m, but as she is renowned for doing saved her best for the sixth and final round.

Competing at the John Walker Night of Miles meeting, Vili was pleased with the performance and indicates she is on target for some top competition in Australia in the New Year.

The 23 year old holds the New Zealand allcomers and resident record at 20.20m and the national record of 20.54m set in winning the world title.

"That's the best ever series result wise in first up competition coming off a break," said Vili. "I'm pretty happy with this, being my first competition since Stuttgart. I'm quite happy with how it started and I definitely know that there's more there. "Training has been going good, this competition hasn't really been targeted, but it was a competition that we had in mind as a last blow out before Christmas, pretty happy with the end result and I look forward to heading over to Noumea on Saturday," she added.

Her coach Kirsten Hellier was also very happy with the opening result of the season. Vili has competitions lined up in Canberra and Sydney next month and will next compete in Auckland at the IAAF Permit Meeting at Waitakere on 19 February.

Vili's husband Bertrand was in top form in the discus event which followed the shot put. He was out to a personal best and fresh New Caledonian record of 62.13m.
Tereapii Tapoki threw 56.53m to win the women's discus.
Patrick Hellier won the shot put with 15.32m and was second in the discus with 48.70m.

Niko Verekauta of Fiji who attends the IAAF High Performance Training Centre on the North Shore won the Maxpower invitational 400m in 47.38s, beating James Dolphin 48.02s and Moses Kamut 48.78s.
Matt Brown won a sprint double with wind assisted times of 6.87s for 60m and 10.51s over 100m.

Auckland's Matthew Mildenhall won the annual John Walker junior mile in 4m 11.98s, clearing out from the field mid-way through the race to beat fast finishing Simon Rogers of Wellington. Rogers recorded 4m 13.99s, with Corey Casey also Wellington third in 4m 18.58s. Alex Parlane ran well for fourth in 4m 19.63s with Michael Whitehead fifth in 4m 20.48s.
Aniel Smith won the senior mile in 4m 14.59s while Nikki Hamblin recorded 4m 59.09s to win the junior women's mile.

Aaron Jackson set an Auckland M19 record in winning the Auckland 10,000m championship outright in 32m 15.88s. Stephen Lett won the senior title in 32m 46.41s, with the women's title going to Maria Akesson in 37m 39.19s.

athletics.org.nz