Day 1 & 2 of Australian Under 20/23 Athletics Championships

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15 Mar 2008

Outstanding Tasmanian junior track and field stars, Daniel Coleman and Hamish Peacock, have been the star performers for Tasmania at the half way stage of the Australian Under 20 and Under 23 Track and Field Championships on the Gold Coast.

 

Both athletes have retained the national under 20 titles in their pet events, which they won at the 2007 championships in Hobart.

 

For Coleman, there was an agonising angle to his performance as his winning time of 44:11.81, despite being a fine personal best, was unfortunately just six seconds outside the qualifying time he needs to go to the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland in July.

 

Peacock, on the other hand has a swag of qualifiers under his belt and only needed to win today’s javelin final, which also served as the selection trial, to gain an automatic spot on the team.

 

And that he did, sending the 800 gram spear out to 70.56m, seven metres ahead of his nearest opponent and more than four metres in advance of the selection standard, once again.

 

Earlier he had finished fourth in the discus with a best of 51.62m.

 

In other results, Peacock’s 15 year old younger brother Huw went up three age divisions to take the silver medal in the under 20 men’s hammer, heaving the 6kg implement an impressive 56.30 metres whilst Josh Harris took bronze in the under 20 3000m steeplechase in 9:41.50