Mini track and field meet tomorrow afternoon

Athletics Cook Islands will hold a mini track and field meet at the BCI Stadium on Friday afternoon for all interested athletes.

With a number of overseas competitions in the offering for athletes this year the opportunity to have some competition based performances from early in the year will help ACI select the best teams possible.

For open age athletes the major competition this year is the Oceania Open and Under 18 Championships that will be held in Cairns, Australia, in late June. Preliminary entries for this competition close in April.

Among the athletes who will have the opportunity for some early season competition are the athletes that participated in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Champs in Wellington in early December. These include Patricia Taea, Jolyn Iro, Teina Tupuna and Alex Beddoes.

Fridays competition will also be useful for the team of masters athletes who are due to participate in the Oceania championships that are being held in Tauranga New Zealand from February 5 to 12.

During the championships, the annual congress of the Oceania Masters Athletes will be held and it is hoped that they will confirm the host of the 2015 championships as the Cook Islands.

The next championships are due to be held in Bendigo, Australia in January 2014.

The programme for Friday will have two throws (discus and javelin), a sprint, a long jump and a middle distance event and will start at 4:45pm.