Donna Koniel , Venessa Waro , Shirley Vunatup and Pauline Kupai returned from Brisbane at the weekend after competing in the relays at the Queensland Track Classic and in their individual events at the Queensland Championships. Koniel , Waro and Vunatup teamed up with Toea Wisil for the 4*100m relay where they ran a respectable 48.41 seconds . Wisil sat out the 4*400m relay to focus on her individual races and the PNG quartet ran a time of 4min 5 seconds. Koniel had an outstanding run in the 400m hurdles at the Queensland State Championships winning the bronze medal in 62.91 seconds. This is only half a second from Donna’s personal best said APNG President Tony Green so we are very pleased with this effort so early in the season. Newcomer Pauline Kupai was another athlete who shone in the Championships, clocking times of 26.73 seconds in the 200m and 59.58 in the 400m. The Buin girl was drafted into the Kokopo training programme after the PNG Games and her chance to travel overseas came sooner than expected as a result of the unavailability of some of the more experienced athletes. “We are very pleased to see Pauline run under 60 minutes so soon” said Green
Meanwhile Toea Wisil is now preparing for two big meets as the Australian season reaches a climax. After winning the Queensland Classic with a seasons best 11.57, Wisil was easily the fastest qualifier in the heats of the 100m at the Championships . However a tight hamstring resulted in her withdrawal from the final as a precautionary measure. She now heads to Melbourne on Friday for the Melbourne Track Classic which kicks off the IAAF World Challenge for 2013.Wisil and Nelson Stone will head to Sydney next week for the Australian National Championships which will be conducted over four days from 11 to 14 April.
3 April 2013
Last Modified on 14/04/2013 23:31