It takes a lot to impress athletics super coach Dale Stevenson who tracks the progress of Kiwi shot put great Tom Walsh on a daily basis. But Lauren Bruce achieved that in a performance that puts the young Cantab within touching distance of the Tokyo Olympics.
Bruce produced the standout showing of Athletics New Zealand’s Spring Series meets in the last of three hitouts in Hastings on Sunday when she smashed the New Zealand and Oceania records for the hammer throw with a stunning succession of distances.
The 23-year-old Timaru-raised, now Christchurch-domiciled athlete, who trains alongside Walsh in Stevenson’s elite squad, obliterated her previous best of 68.14 metres, as well as Julia Ratcliffe’s national record of 72.35m, when she blasted the hammer out to stunning 73.47m with her fifth throw at Mitre 10 Park.
That not only surpassed her previous competition best by more than five metres (five of her six throws sailed past her old PB), but puts her up to sixth on the 2020 world rankings, four spots ahead of Ratcliffe, with two Kiwis now sitting inside the global top-10.
If there was a downside to such a spectacular achievement, it was that it came while World Athletics has put its Olympic qualifying period into abeyance until December 1. Bruce would have nailed a spot in Tokyo, with the women’s hammer mark set at 72.50m – a distance she’s confident of ticking off before Christmas.
“She has certainly been showing in all our major training markers she has been good for a little while,” Stevenson told Stuff. “But to do it convincingly and repeatedly in one competition is a good affirmation of where she’s at. It wasn’t a total surprise, but the way she did it was impressive.”
After coming through the sport as a youngster dabbling in many aspects, Bruce, who has a gymnastics background, only decided to focus fully on the hammer throw around October of 2019 – a year out from the originally scheduled Olympics.
She had been a national-level triple jumper in her younger days and until last October also a more than handy discus exponent. But Stevenson made it clear a decision had to be made.
“Lauren is the real deal,” added the national throws coach. “We talked about it. She could probably be a Commonwealth Games-level athlete in a few different events … but to be an Olympic-level and Olympic medal -level athlete, hammer was the avenue for her to go down.
“And, to her credit, she has dialled in on that. For two comps with no direct competition at the back end of the Christchurch winter, to do that, the signs are positive. We’re excited to see where we can go with it across the domestic season.”
With Ratcliffe not lining up in Hastings, Bruce produced her stunning series pretty much solo. She opened with a 5cm PB of 68.19m, then went 72.12, 67.93, 70.62, 73.47 and 71.58m.
“The target going in was the New Zealand record, so to tick off the record was great,” said Bruce. “I didn’t really attack my first throw, so I knew after an easy 68m there was a lot more there.
“After round two my heart was racing, so I had to calm down. I was relieved to throw 73.47m. It has been a long time coming because I’ve known I’ve been capable of throwing [that] for a few years now.”
Athletics NZ high performance manager Scott Goodman was rapt a successful series achieved such a signature performance.
“She had some good breakthroughs last season, and by the time we got to Hawke’s Bay for our winter training camp, the work she and Dale had been doing was certainly starting to pay off.
“We knew she was capable of well over 70, but there’s a difference between knowing that and her doing it in competition. It was a big buzz.”
Stevenson hopes they will tick off an official Olympic qualifier in Christchurch pre-Christmas, which would then allow her to compete through the New Zealand domestic season free of pressure.
Kiwi shot put legends Dame Valerie Adams and Walsh were not quite so impressive in Hastings, but nonetheless went into their off-season breaks on a winning note.
Adams edged a tight battle with young Auckland rival Maddison-Lee Wesche, with the dual Olympic gold medallist’s fourth-round 17.90m effort just enough to nudge out the final toss of 17.85m by the former world under-20 champion.
Walsh, the 2019 world champs bronze medallist, made it three straight wins in the series with a Sunday best of 21.09m – well below what he’s capable of. The Cantab’s top throw for the Hastings meets had come on Thursday when he managed a solid 21.62m.
The other highlight of the series came from Dame Valerie’s younger sister Lisa who broke her own F37 shot put world record in the first meet with 15.50m and then backed it up on Sunday with a national record and world-leading mark of 30.19m in the discus.
Goodman said most top Kiwi athletes would now take a month-long break, before returning to prepare for what shaped as an important domestic season. “It looks like we won’t even get to Australia this summer, so to have some good rivalries here, with Lauren and Julia in the hammer, Valerie and Maddison-Lee and Tom’s got Jacko [Gill], Ryan Ballantyne and Nick Palmer in the men’s shot, that’s important.”
