Emerging Cantab sprinter after 100m glory
The Press Last updated 05:00 12/03/2009
Rising Canterbury sprint star David Ambler will duel with New Zealand’s slickest speedsters James Dolphin and Chris Donaldson at the international athletics meeting at QE II in Christchurch tonight (Friday).
Ambler has been in outstanding form in recent weeks racing in Australia having claimed the Canterbury senior and New Zealand junior records of late.
Ambler is after the QE II Stadium record of 10.38sec set in 1974 by Commonwealth Games gold medallist Don Quarrie, of Jamaica.
Ambler first broke the provincial record of Scott Bowden, twice clocking 10.47 sec and 10.45 sec on successive weekends at the New South Wales and Australian Capital Territories championships last month.
He then clocked 10.41 sec to claim the national under-19 100m record at another meeting in Sydney while last week he lined up alongside the world’s second-fastest sprinter, Asafa Powell, and ran third into a headwind.
His time was 10.52 sec.
Dolphin is a former national 100m titleholder, who stepped out in the 200m at the Beijing Olympics and his best 100m time is 10.41 sec identical to Ambler’s.
He was a 200m finalist at the Commonwealth Games and a quarterfinalist at the world championships in Paris in 2003 and Osaka 2007.
Donaldson is a six-time national champion and resident record holder with a best of 10.27sec and is in heavy training as a squad member of the New Zealand bobsleigh team preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Meanwhile, another sprinter, Monique Williams, who has won the 100m, 200m and 400m titles for the past two years, is targeting Kim Robertson’s long-standing resident record of 23.43 sec which was also set in Christchurch. Robertson holds the 30-year-old national mark of 23.13 sec.
A $1000 bonus is also at stake for breaking a New Zealand record.
Double Olympian Mike Aish will appear in the 3000m and has the fastest time of the field at 7min 50.65 sec.
The United States-based Aish is better known as a 5000m and 10,000m exponent.
