[i]Canterbury sprinter David Ambler was an angry young man at the end of the men’s 100m at the national athletics championships in Wellington yesterday.
The object of his anger had nowhere to hide either because the 19-year-old speedster only had himself to blame for his shock disqualification from the final.
With only one false start allowed, the eight-strong field was on edge after Otago’s Chris Donaldson fractionally beat the gun on the first start.
Ambler’s break on the second start meant automatic disqualification, and he walked away with his head in his hands.
But he soon returned to the start line. After signifying his intention to protest the decision, Ambler was permitted to contest the race, and powered through some trying blustery conditions to cross the line first in a personal best time of 10.38 seconds.
An outright favourite entering the final after an impressive series of times over the past month, Ambler finished the race with everything and nothing.
The Canterbury centre’s protest against his disqualification was dismissed, and first place was awarded to Aucklander Carl van der Speck, whose 10.53sec was comfortably ahead of teammate Craig Bearda’s 10.57sec.
A third Aucklander, James Mortimer, took bronze in 10.64sec.
The following wind of 2.4m per second was well above the allowable limit of 2m for a legal time.
Afterwards, an upset Ambler said he could blame no one but himself for the result.
“I just got away a bit too early. There was a bit of noise, but I should have held and waited for the gun. It’s a pretty distinctive noise …”
Ambler said he was happy to run under protest and come away with a win.
“I thought I was disqualified, I just started walking off but a few guys yelled out to run under duress, under protest, so I got out there and showed the New Zealand guys I could take it out.”
His third start of the final wasn’t the best, but Ambler’s power over the closing stages of the 100m is becoming a real strength, and served him well today.
“I didn’t get away too well the third time, you don’t want to break twice. I got out a bit tentatively, but in the end I pulled through,” Ambler said.
“I was pretty angry after the breaks - I was angry with myself - so I suppose that came out on the track … you have to wait for the gun, it’s pretty simple.”
Van der Speck, with a personal best of 10.61sec going into the championships, said it had been difficult to focus with so many distractions.
“I was pretty nervous after a couple of false starts, but I kind of took advantage of that,” he said.
“You just have to block everything out and hope for the best.”
Van der Speck, a South African who has lived in New Zealand for 11 years, posted the second fastest time in the heats with 10.59sec behind Ambler’s 10.46sec.
“I felt really good in the heats, and then just blew it out in the final.”
After a “shocker” in Brisbane last week at the Australian championships, van der Speck was more than happy to pick up a national title today.
“Hopefully I’ve got all the bad runs out of the way and I’m back into the good now.”[/i]
from http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/2297732/Fastest-sprinter-doesn-t-win-title
Today’s drama was the winner of the 300m SM walk getting DQ’d for doing a roly poly over the line :rolleyes:
http://nzrun.com/Photos/3000m%20Walk.pdf
