By Raphaella Kaore – EM TV Sports, Port Moresby
A new national record has been set by long jump athlete, Rellie Kaputin.
Kaputin set the benchmark after exceeding former record-holder, Lily Tua’s 24-year-old national record for the women’s long jump last Saturday at the Junior College Regional Indoor Championships at the Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, Iowa in the United States.
The new mark of 5.79 metres bettered the old record by just 4cm, and was part of a consistent series of jumps with four of the Papua New Guinean’s six attempts being over 5.50m.
Kaputin has been in good form all season and goes into the National Indoor Championships at the end of next week, ranked fourth in the long jump and triple jump and tenth in the high jump.
Another athlete in great form going to Albuquerque on 4 March is Adrine Monagi, who in the five event pentathlon ranks second in the nation in junior college competition. Monagi set another three personal best performances on Saturday, with a 1.61m clearance in the high jump, 5.42m in long jump and a 9.73m shot put.
Sharon Toako also posted personal best performances in the shot put (10.47m) and weight throw (12.02m). Theo Piniau posted season’s best performances in the 400m and 60m of 50.09 seconds and 7.01 seconds respectively.
Athletics PNG officials were however concerned to hear that John Rivan pulled up with a hamstring problem and await a report from his trainer. Rivan has been in great form this season in the short sprints.
Meanwhile over in Lubbock, Wala Gime, Shirley Vunatup, Poro Gahekave, Cecilia Kumalalamene, Kevin Kapmatana, Andipas Georasi and Richard Dotaona were all in action at Texas Tech University.
Gime was in fine form in the 55m hurdles clocking a time of 7.61 seconds. Vunatup clocked an indoor personal best of 59.68 seconds, as did Kapmatana with a time of 50.70 seconds.
