Lyall wins silver
02 Dec 2008
Deloraine’s Jillian Lyall has won Tasmania’s first track and field medal at the 2008 Pacific Schools Games in Canberra today.
On the third day of competition, Lyall took the silver medal in the 2000m steeplechase, in a time of 7:14.46 smashing her previous personal best by some 9 seconds.
“My goal going into the race, was to win a medal and I would have been happy with bronze. So to win silver is great.
“I’ve worked really hard for this and it was all worth it. Although I have been doing steeple’s for a few years, it helps to have Donna MacFarlane in Tasmania to look up to.”
Lyall’s program now heads towards the shorter events, with the 800m and 1500m races to come, where high placing results will be the goal again.
Launceston’s Darcy Lahey obliterated his 400m personal best time, in finishing 2nd in his heat of the under 14 boys and easily progressing through to the final. Lahey ran 52.37 and heads into the final as the 4th fastest qualifier from the preliminaries. The 5th fastest qualifier is also Tasmanian, with Hobart’s Thomas Parry taking half a second off his lifetime best, running 53.54sec to take second in his heat also.
Budding multi eventer Chris McConnell began his campaign well, qualifying for the under 17s 400m hurdles final. The Elizabeth College student placed second in his heat with 56.71, a massive new personal best. He continues tomorrow morning with the heats of the 110m hurdles, then the 100m heats and shot put later in the week.
Continuing the fine Tasmanian form in the steeplechase, Natalea Smith placed 5th in the under 14 girls, with a 4 second personal best to run 7:38.37
Yesterday Tiffany Hendricks ran 5th in the under 12 girls 100m final, with scorching times in all her heat, semi and final. The Launceston student ran 12.66sec in the final, 12.57 in her semi final and 12.83 in her heat, however all were aided by an illegal wind and although the times were under the state record for her age, they will not stand as new records. No doubt she will be itching to get less blustery conditions sometime soon, so that record of 12.82 can be re-written with her name on it.
The speedster then went on to break the state under 13 record for 200m today, in qualifying for the 200m final. Running 26.34sec, she qualified third fastest overall for tomorrow’s final.
Live results are online at http://www.athletics.com.au/community/statsdata/live_results