Summer Series: 16 November 2024

The second last Capital Athletics meet before All Schools in Brisbane and the squad yet again did not disappoint.

Olivia Jose smashed her 200m personal best by 2 seconds to finish in 27.75s, the fastest U14 Woman of the day. Ivy (Ivan-Rose) Lawson was briefing down Olivia’s neck in both the 100m and 200m. Ivy was just off her best in the 200m (29.21s) but her 100m was a new personal record of 13.57s, which was 0.6s improvement since NSWCCC in late September. The girls finishing first and second in both the 100m and 200m respectively. Olivia was just outstanding her 100m best (13.32s) in her first hit out since the ACT Secondary School Championships. It was though a great afternoon for the Ginninderra U14 athletes.

Rose Catejan was the squad’s representative in the Open Women with new personal bests in the 100m (13.40s) and the 200m (28.39s). In each race Rose was the fastest ACT Woman in her age group. The PNG Flyer will be looking to build from here in what was her first race since returning to study at the University of Canberra at the beginning of this year.

Sam Ainsworth in the U14 Men also had a brilliant day in the 100m (14.59s) and 200m (29.71s), where he broke his personal best in the 200m along the way. He placed in the top 3 in the 200m which is quite the effort for the 11 year old from Gungahlin Little Athletics Club.

Daniel Nwaobi (U16) has continued his purple patch of form in the lead up to Brisbane with another sublime performance in the 100m (11.42s) and had the opportunity to race against the fastest men in the ACT including his Ginninderra team mates Toby and Ryan for club bragging rights. Daniel will be looking forward to his next chance to race against the older sprinters again soon.

The squad’s 400m group didn’t disappoint with Tom Madigan (54.55s), Vishaal Vijayakumar (56.77s), Lewin Ainsworth (59.22s) and Ivy (1:09.55) also running strongly. Both Vish and Tom ran personal bests, whilst Lewin and Ivy just missed their personal records by 0.1s respectively. Summer Series was Vish’s first race since February 2024 (57.59s) and since his move to the 400m he has now taken 3 seconds off his best in a season. Tom has repeatedly broken his 400m PB every time he has raced since the ACT Championships in February 2024 (58.39s), starting with the Southside Regionals (58.24s), and the ACT Secondary School Championships (56.37s) in September. All three boys are representing the ACT at All Schools in a fortnight in what is shaping to be a positive experience for everyone.

Ivy who did all three sprints at Summer Series also competed in the Long Jump (4.17m) which is another personal best for the 12 year old. She had a really big program and trained earlier in the day to learn how to use blocks from Canberra Sprints Coach, Steve Dodt.

Tearia Teaiwa Mortimer was also very busy working as a voulnteer official. Tearia kept the track program moving along by helping on the sprints and hurdles events and long jump at the end of the day.