AMA Winter Throws 2010

Results

Female & Male throws.
Throws Pentathlon: Female & Male results.
Heavy Weight Pentathlon: Female & Male results
Results broken during the championships

Fifteenth AMA Winter Throwing Championships Report

Canberra. October 2 – 4, 2010
While the 15th AMA Winter Throwing Championships had many highlights none was more satisfying than Ruth Frith’s 11.30m world record hammer throw. Competing in the Throws Pentathlon at the Masson St Throwing Centre Ruth set the record on her first throw of the day! Ruth has been a magnificent competitor for more than 20 years in Masters athletics and holds a substantial swag of world records in the throws across a number of age groups from 80s to 100s. She maintains her enthusiasm for training and competing and recently assisted the Greek government in Greece in a marketing campaign to get older Greek women active.

Canberra provided its usual cool, cloudy, showery weather for the three days of competition. And of course the day after provided a perfect blue sky at 24 celsius. Nevertheless 61 athletes competed over the three days with many friendly rivalries contested within events. In all, one World, five Australian and 28 Championship records were set. Entries were received from all states and Territories except WA. Ten entries were from first time competitors and Kevin Blewitt received his free tenth competition T Shirt. There was plenty of comment about the pink competition T shirts, which looked particularly striking dotted around the ground.

The Saturday program consisted of the five individual throws of hammer, shot, discus, javelin and weight, a big enough task when a Throws Pentathlon with only three throws each. But when an individual event you are allowed six throws each. Many athletes adopted a conservative approach using only three or four throws. Women hammer throwers with high level efforts were Jayne Hardy (45ACT) 37.60m, Sharon Gibbins (50 ACT) 39.02m, Jan Banens (65ACT) 35.40m, Helen Searle (70Qld) 31.95m and Joyce Schmidt (75NSW) 25. 39m for a new Championship Record (CR). Very good hammer throwers in the men were Phil Frkovic (45NSW) 41.91m, Roger Glass (60Vic) 47.69m. Joyce Schmidt and Mary Wahren (75ACT) had a very close competition with Joyce winning by just over a metre. Closest competition in the men was in the M50 – Peter Reed (50NSW) 37.28m, Voitek Klimiuk (50NSW) 37.04 and Robert Hanbury-Brown (50NSW) 35.02m.

Christine Tew (50Vic) 10.31m, Denise Palmer (55NSW) 9.88m, Helen Searle 9.90m(CR) and Joyce Schmidt 8.14m(CR), threw well in the Shot. For the men Phil Frkovic 11.58m, Graeme Rose (65Vic) 11.40m to Ray Green’s (65ACT) 11.26m, and Ron Simcock (75NSW) 10.85m threw well. Raylea Rudov (65ACT) 7.90m and Astrid Rose (65Vic) 7.26m had a close competition, as did Peter Reed 11.00m and Robert Hanbury-Brown 11.04m. Only 44cm separated the placegetters in the M55 Shot – Geoff Crumpton (55ACT) 10.75m, Tony Baker (55NSW) 10.32m and Gavin Murray (55NSW) 10.31m.

Lyn Smith’s (35NSW) 34.38m Discus set a good standard with Helen Searle 21.44 CR and Joyce Schmidt 17.75m CR beating records. For the men Phil Frkovic 35.61m, Voitek Klimiuk 35.97m, Andrew Atkinson-Howatt (50NSW) 36.36 and Robert Hanbury-Brown 37.09 achieved a good standard in a close competition. Geoff Crumpton 34.90m and Gavin Murray 35.69m had a close tussle. Bob Banens (60ACT) had the day’s longest throw with 43.89m. Ray Green 40.14m and Keith James (65NSW) 40.33m were close to the end.

Jayne Hardy’s Weight Throw of 11.80m was a nice effort as was Sharon Gibbins’ 11.72m. Raylea Rudov’s Weight of 12.24m was well clear of the pack and Helen Searle’s 11.18 was a fine throw. Phil Frkovic’s 12.02m was very good with the 35lb implement and Peter Reed’s 16.02m excellent with the 25lb although Voitek Limiuk 13.97and Robert Hanbury-Brown 13.87m battled hard behind him. Geoff Crumpton’s 14.57m with the 25lb was a nice effort. The outstanding Weight throw of the day was Roger Glass 17.10m with 20lb. Graeme Rose was excellent on 15.99m and Ron Simcock showed his versatility with a fine 14.18m.

Day two’s Throws Pentathlons were interrupted by showers, nothing serious, but annoying nevertheless. Jayne Hardy’s 3447 points was sound. Jan Banens 3586 and Raylea Rudov 3380 were close all day. Helen Searle set a new CR of 4349. Joyce Schmidt 3223 and Mary Wahren 3200 had the closest result of the day. And Ruth Frith (100Qld) set an inaugural CR of 5495 and a World Record in the Hammer of 11.30m for 1361 points, while also scoring over 1000 points in three other disciplines. Other women scoring over 1000 points in a discipline were Jan Banens and Helen Searle in the Hammer and Helen Searle in the Shot. Anatoly Kirievski (30NSW) set a new CR of 1879 in his Throws Pentathlon. Peter Reed 3053, Voitek Klimiuk 2984 and Robert Hanbury-Brown 2930 had an exciting contest. Graeme Rose 3 754 dominated the men 65 event and Rocky Wijesinghe (70NSW) 2877 narrowly beat Brett Sowerby (70NSW) 2811.Ron Simcock 4078 was the only male over 4000 points and none of the men scored over 1000 points in any of the disciplines.

The Sunday night BBQ was popular with the usual banter, frivolity and good eating, the latter totally provided by Sharon Gibbins. Seconds and thirds were the order of the night with many litres of ice-cream consumed!

Day three was fully overcast with an ominous threat of rain, which, thankfully, never arrived. The Heavy Weight Pentathlon concept was developed by Ray Green with scoring tables developed by Bob Banens. It has been adopted in other parts of the world. It is not an easy event as throwers have to adapt to two much lighter Weights and two much heavier Weights than normally thrown. Jayne Hardy 3575, Jill Taylor (55NSW) 3918 and Raylea Rudov 3918 posted very good results. Anatoly Kirievski set a new M35 CR of 2055, while Peter Reed threw well for 3305. Geoff Crumpton’s 3430 was a good effort. Roger Glass achieved an excellent 4037 while Graeme Rose made 3952. The best men’s score of the day was Ron Simcock’s 4142. Ewen Drummond (85ACT) set a new CR of 2186.

In the 56lb Weight throw Jayne Hardy set a new CR of 4.30m, as did Lesley Dawson (50SA) 3.32m. Jill Taylor reached 3.25m and Raylea Rudov was happy with a 2.98m CR. Peter Reed’s 7.44m was the longest throw of the day with Terry Gibbs (55NSW) very good at 6.94m. Geoff Crumpton’s 7.33m was a new CR and Roger Glass set a new Australian Record (AR) with 7.25m. Noel Donohoe (70NSW) liked his 4.18m and Norm Windred’s (80NSW) 3.10m was a good throw.

Three women and 14 men lined up for the 100lb Weight throw. Lesley Dawson with 1.54m just missed the Australian Record but Geoff Crumpton with 3.76m set a new AR. Roger Glass gained his second AR of the day with 3.44m. Ray Green 2.59m and David Wookey (65Vic) 2.52m had the closest age group contest.

At the completion of the 100lb throws the Championships concluded with the announcement of the Champion Male and Female Athletes. Ron Simcock, with some excellent performances across many disciplines was judged the Champion Male Athlete and Ruth Frith with her World Record hammer performance, CRs in all her events and the only competitor over 5000 points in a Pentathlon was the Champion Female.

These Championships have developed a tradition for friendly competition with a pervasive joi de vivre that many comment on. The team that organises these Championships while Champion Throwers are also Champion People. My thanks go to Jayne Hardy, Raylea Rudov and Sharon Gibbins in particular. I must make special mention of the help Graeme and Astrid Rose and David Wookey gave each day along with Bryan Trish and Mary Thomas, Noeline Burden, Duncan Macnicol, Tim Gulliver, Ken Smith and Wendy O’Brien for their efforts during these 15th AMA Winter Throwing Championships.

Ray Green
Convenor
October 6, 2010