Athletics Interprovincials

And back to athletics again!

Similar to last season, Mulan was again selected into the Auckland team for the Interprovincials (IPs).

This season it's a bit different though, and for two reasons:

Firstly, she's now in the Under 16/Under 18 competition (last season it was Grade 12 and 13).  They run it slightly differently, and it's a more relaxed event.

Secondly, due to Covid they decided to make it a virtual competition.  This means that the provincial teams are not meeting together for a single in-person competition, but instead are using the results from their local competitions to allocate points and decide placings.  

Each athlete is selected for three events, and competitors choose which local competitions they compete at for Interprovincial points.

Under 16s have to compete in at least one track and one field event, and Mulan was chosen by the Auckland managers for triple jump, shot put and 400m.

This was a bit of a surprise, as Mulan does better in long jump than shot put, and hurdles rather than 400m (and she hadn't been training at all for 400m).  But as it's a points competition we guess that the points are skewed that way.

This is all leading up to say that Mulan did her first IP event on Saturday, throwing the shot put at the McKinnon Shield competition.  The results are here.

Her best throw of 7.79m was okay, though a significant decrease after her huge throws at the Colgate Games.  (We reasoned that holding up her flute all week probably wasn't good shot put preparation!)

Now with Omicron Covid in the community and New Zealand back to red light restrictions, the upcoming athletics competitions are changing.  We're still waiting on Athletics Auckland to set the schedule and let us know how and when Mulan might fit in her triple jump and 400m.