Last week Chris Brake was praising his consistency ahead of the New Zealand Secondary School Track and Field Championship in Hamilton, but acknowledged he wasn’t quite feeling it in high jump.
What a difference a week can make.
The 18 year old jumper will be the only Tapawera Area School representative at the national event, but he’s probably Nelson’s best shot at a gold medal if recent form has anything to go by.
Chris stands at 180cm tall, and on Friday night, he leapt 2 metres in the air to finally clear the impressive high jump milestone on his first attempt – a target he had been trying to reach for the past two years. With it, he also claimed the Tasman Centre record for the M20 age group but was just shy of the senior record which stands at 2.03m, and put himself firmly back into medal contention for nationals.
Chris, who is coached by school P.E teacher Stephen Haunch, came back from the national event with three medals last year, one of each colour – gold, silver and bronze. His gold came in the high jump, and while he will compete in that event, along with long jump and triple jump, it’s the latter which he sees his best opportunity to strike gold at his last secondary school event. “I’m actually really happy with where I’m at, at the moment,” says Chris. “With my triple jump I’m a lot more confident than I was going into the last secondary school nationals. I really want to go there and have a similar performance to what I did last year.”
Before Friday, the Year 13 student has personal best statistics of 1.97m in high jump, 14m in triple jump and 6.81m in long jump. Although he hasn’t bettered those marks so far this season, consistency has been his key this year right across the board, and he had cleared 1.95m in the high jump with “quite a few” unsuccessful attempts at 1.98m, before finally reaching 2m.
“I’ve been very consistent in my triple jump around the 13.65m mark and with long jump I’m probably a bit below but it’s been around 6.40m or 6.50m. I was hoping I’d be performing a lot higher but I’m performing consistently which is good. I’m confident that I can come down to the track and pull out a 13.50m plus jump, I just need to push myself a little bit more.”
