Aus Youth Fest. Day1

Members Area In the News
1

20.01.2007
Parnov, Heap and Song outstanding on Day 1 of AYOF
A large crowd in excess of 1000 witnessed outstanding performances on day one of the athletics competition at the Australia Olympic Youth Festival in Sydney.
Australian athletes won five of the eight field events contested on the first night of Australian Youth Olympic Festival competition at the Sydney Athletic Centre.
China won two and Chinese Taipei the other.

Australian jumpers Vicki Parnov in the women’s pole vault and Josh Heap in the men’s high jump, along with Chinese javelin thrower Dan Song were the stand-outs.

The hot favourite for the women’s pole vault, Australia’s Vicki Parnov, lived up to expectations smashing her competition and the Australian Youth Olympics record with a clearance of 4.25m.

The vaulters from China, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania were all cheering each other on as they attempted to make their respective heights while Parnov lay under the tent, getting up occasionally to stretch.

Despite their sportsmanship the other girls never stood a chance with Parnov only starting after the last of her competitors.Minor medallists Amanda Bartrim and Rachel Birtles bowed out at 3.70m.

Parnov, who is the niece of Sydney 2000 Olympic silver medallist Tatiana Grigorieva set the bar at 3.90m, 10 cm above the AYOF record and had an easy clearance.

She then cleared 4.10m with a squeal of delight and a clap of her hands. Then she put it up to 4.25m, failing at her first and second attempt and clearly upset with herself. At her third attempt, she gestured to the crowd of supporters to clap and this time it carried her over the bar, again she let out a scream of joy. With a personal best at 4.32m she raised the bar to 4.35m but couldn’t quite get there again visibly frustrated. “I was a bit annoyed but what can you do,” she said. But overall she was pleased with her result, “I’m so happy”. At the high jump arena Joshua Heap captured the gold with a 2.17m clearance. He was pushed hard by the very tall competition Xiaoming Feng of China who jumped 2.11m. Conditions were tough with the wind causing the bar to fall off repeatedly “It’s a bit scary when that happens but…you just have to jump and do what you can…you sort of learn to jump when the wind’s right”, he said. The 17-year-old Queenslander, who is the 2006 National U/17 Champion, didn’t even know he had broken a record, “Oh really…that’s good…I didn’t even know that.” Chinese javelin sensation, Dan Song, threw an astonishing 55.54m to win gold in the women’s javelin – her nearest rival more than 10 metres shy of her huge throw which smashed the Youth Festival by over four metres. Song leads the world under-17 list by a staggering five metres, with her seasons best of 58.59m recorded in August, when she placed third in the open Chinese Nationals. Ranked no.7 open javelin thrower in China, Song is a strong prospect for the Beijing 2008 Olympics as she is within three metres of the best in China. In other field results, Australia’s Tahnee Reynolds-Hopkins took gold with a leap of 12.47m in the women’s triple jump and Henry Frayne made it an Aussie double with his 14.99m winning jump in the men’s final. Jing Liu bagged gold for her 14.99m throw in the women’s shotput, Matt Stopel from Australia won the men’s hammer throw with a hurl of 57.87m and Lun Chen from Chinese Taipei won gold in the men’s javelin with a throw of 77.23m. Warm conditions and a nice strong breeze assisted the sprinters on the track. Under 17 national champion Olivia Tauro representing Australia Green continued to stamp her dominance, taking out the 100m event in yet another world youth qualifying time of 11.77. Leading from the gun, blasted away her main rivals Jane Larkin(Aus Orange) in 12.05 and Elly Graf (Aus Red) in 12.17. Jared Bezuidenhout (Aus Orange) secured the gold medal in the men’s 100m by the smallest of margins from Tse Ching Liang (Chinese Taipei) 10.91 and compatriot Daniel Martin (Aus Yellow) 10.95. The second and final day of competition will be held on Saturday, 20 January 2007. Medal Count - Day 1 China - 5G 3S 2B Aus Yellow 4G 5S 8B Aus Red 4G 5S 3B Chinese Taipei 4G 2S 1B Aus Orange 3G 3S 5B Aus Green 3G 3S 4 B New Zealand 0G 2S 0B For further information and results please visit: http://www.olympics.com.au/ayof07 Written by Katey Loughman - AYOF

2

Tauro, Fitzgibbons and Gregson shine on day 2 of AYOF
Olivia Tauro, Sally Fitzgibbons and Ryan Gregson again produced dominant performances on the second day of the athletics competition at Sydney’s Olympic Park Athletic Centre.

The three young athletes confirmed they are class acts as they all picked up their second gold medal in as many days – Tauro in the 200m, Fitzgibbons in the 800m and Gleeson taking gold in the 3000m.

Sixteen-year-old Tauro looked to miss the start badly in her 200m victory, but she ran a strong bend, caught the field on the corner and won in a sensational time of 23.92 seconds ahead of Australia’s Jane Larkin to claim the sprint double.

“I had a really bad start, I nearly tripped over,” said an exhausted Tauro.

“It was good to be able to come out and win again. It was a good double, I’m very proud.”

Tauro said that she was “very sore” after the race which along with yesterday’s 100m and 4 x 100m made it her third event in 24 hours.

To add to her 1500m gold medal, Gerroa’s own super-woman 16-year-old Sally Fitzgibbons produced a victory in the 800m that looked effortless in the soaring 36 degree heat.

The national surfing champion, state cross country runner and state touch footballer never looked like losing the event which she completed in a time of 2:10.08 to the roar of the crowd that appreciated the talent before them.

Not to be outdone by the girls Ryan Gregson from Wollongong secured his second gold of the competition adding the 3000m to his 1500m win yesterday.

He won comfortably in a time of 8:32.55, in front of Australian Cameron Page. Gregson, 16, can add the two gold to his national all schools under-17 1500m and 3000m titles – quite an achievement for a young man who only took up athletics to join his sister who couldn’t handle the cold water at swimming club.

In the women’s 400m hurdles Jessie Couch, daughter of former Australian Rules football star Paul Couch, was heavily favoured to win the race and the young Victorian athlete didn’t disappoint - blitzing the field to win by 8 metres in a time of 1 minute 1.66 seconds.

Couch felt that the gold in the hurdles eased the pain from her narrow loss in the 400m the previous day.

“I was a bit tired from the 400m yesterday, but I love it. It’s really fun and a great experience to be here,” said the young Victorian.

Earlier in the day, action on the track began with the men’s 400m hurdles which produced a tight race between Australia’s Sam Carson and China’s Wen Wei – Carson prevailed in a tight finish winning with a time of 53.25 seconds.

In the men’s 800m, Sydneysider James Kann used his fan base in the stands to full advantage with a blistering finish down the home straight to see off New Zealander Dallas Bowden in a time of 1:53.35 in what was the race of the day.

In a race that was run in testing conditions with a baking hot track under-foot, Australia’s Ashleigh Gentle was anything but that on her competitors in the women’s 3000m as she streaked away to win gold by four seconds in a time of 9:46.56.

China secured the double in the mixed 5000m walk which saw two Australian’s collapse onto the track suffering heat exhaustion. Lingfu Geng won gold in the men’s with a time of 21:44.46 and compatriot Shuo Yang broke the tape in 23:04.16 for Youth Festival gold.

The 4 x 400 relays wrapped up the athletics program with Australia taking gold in both events, the men winning in a time of 3:21.36 and the women finishing in 3:49.08.

Written by Joe Bromham AYOF

3

See in this mornings paper that Grigorieva is expected annnounce her retirement tomorrow.