Tanner And Peeters Impress At Silesia Diamond League

New Zealand athletes claimed a pair of podium finishes and banked two Paris Olympic entry standards earlier today at the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial Diamond League meeting in Silesia, Poland.

On her Diamond League debut Tori Peeters – who bettered her national record with a 63.26m throw in Yokohama in May – backed up this performance with an excellent 62.73m to place third in the women’s javelin.

The Cambridge-based 29-year-old athlete coped excellently with any pressure and expectation she may have been feeling to fire out her best of the day in round one.

Victory was secured by world bronze medallist Haruka Kitaguchi who set a Japanese record, meet record and world lead distance of 67.04m to win the competition from Mackenzie Little of Australia (64.50m).

Peeters said of her performance: “I’m super stoked to finish third on my Diamond League debut and I’m really happy with the distance too. Throwing the second longest distance in my career at a big meet like this is all good practise for the World Athletics Championships in August.”

Sam Tanner shaved one tenth from his lifetime best to secure a Paris Olympic entry standard mark of 3:31.24 to place fifth in a high-class men’s 1500m. With the race set up for Tokyo Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen to have a crack at the world record the pacemaker hit the 800m checkmark in a blistering 1:50.72 with Tanner sensibly hanging off the pace several places from the back of the field.

However, producing a well-judged piece of middle-distance running, the Kiwi finished strongly to bank a new lifetime best performance and better the time he ran when placing sixth at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games last year.

Ingebrigtsen missed out on the world record, but the Norwegian superstar had the consolation of smashing the European record of 3:27.14 and climbing to fourth on the all-time 1500m lists. Kenyan duo Abel Kipsang (3:29.11) and Reynold Cheruyiot (3:30.30) with a pair of PB’s rounded out the podium.

Tom Walsh secured a third successive Diamond League podium in 2023 by placing third with a best of 21.78m and also ticked off the Paris Olympic entry standard in the men’s shot put. The 31-year-old Commonwealth champion powered out a 21.73m throw in round three and climaxed his competition by adding 5cm to this mark.

New Zealand champion Jacko Gill was also in action, placing sixth with a best of 21.38m. World and Olympic champion Ryan Crouser of the US took out the victory with a 22.55m effort from compatriot Payton Otterdahl (21.88m).

Competing in her first competition since blitzing to a New Zealand women’s 100m record of 10.96 (+0.2) in La-Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland, Zoe Hobbs placed eighth in the 100m, recording a time of 11.15. In a thrilling race, US champion Sha’Carri Richardson in 10.76 edged world silver medallist Shericka Jackson of Jamaica by 0.02 to take the victory.

Kiwi high jump star Hamish Kerr, who won his previous Diamond League meet in Stockholm, had to settle for eighth today with a best of 2.24m. In a world-class competition, the joint Olympic champions took out the top two spots with Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar clearing a meet lead and world leading 2.36m from Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi (2.34m). German Tobias Potye set a PB of 2.34m for third.

The next two Diamond Leagues come in quick succession with the Monaco meet on Saturday July 22 (NZ time) followed by the London Diamond League on Monday 24 July.

***For results go here

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