Samuels, Dewhurst star at #AAC2014

NSWIS athletes Dani Samuels and Ian Dewhurst have smashed their personal best marks at the 92nd Australian Athletics Championships to book their place for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

A strong and consistent year by Dani Samuels was taken to a new level on the final throw of the domestic season when she hit 66.81m in the sixth round of the national championships on Sunday.

“I knew that I had nailed it, I felt it straight away, and to see almost 67 metres come up is amazing. All the training I have done over the years has now paid off, it hasn’t been for nothing despite not hitting what I thought I could,” Samuels said.

“Throws like that don’t come along everyday so it’s a great result. I’m very happy.”

The distance added over a metre to her personal best and moved her one place to number two on the Australian all-time list.

Hawkesbury’s Ian Dewhurst was another to lower his personal best taking 0.37 off his previous best mark to take out the men’s 400m hurdles in 49.32 seconds.

“I am a little bit shocked with the finals time,” Dewhurst said. 

“I tried a different stride pattern today running 13 strides down the back and I was going a little faster, but I was still able to come home just as strong. 

“It is something I’ve been working on at training. I just had to build up the confident to put it into a race. These championships were the first time I tried it in a competition, and it worked well.”

On Saturday, Steve Solomon and Nicholas Hough posted Commonwealth Games B qualifiers in taking out the men’s 400m and 110m hurdles respectively, whilst Ben St Lawrence and Brandon Starc also secured B qualifiers in finishing second in the 5000m and men’s high jump.

In other results, IPC World Championship bronze medallist Guy Henly took out the men’s discus with 48.06m, Georgia Wassall continued her great season placing third in the women’s 800m, Rae Anderson finished second in the women’s T37/38 long jump and Jake Stein claimed the men’s decathlon.