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It may not have been pretty, but Olympic heptathlon prospect Sarah Cowley did achieve her primary objective a successful defence of her womens long jump crown at the NZ Track & Field Championships at Waitakere today. Jumping into a changeable wind, her distance of 5.74m was well down on her winning performance 12 months ago (6.08m) and her recent wind-assisted personal best (6.28m). Its quite a way down on what I wanted to do, but conditions were quite difficult out there, said Cowley (28). Everytime I stepped onto the runway, it felt like there was a headwind, but thats just the nature of it. While Im disappointed with the distance, Im under lots of loaded training and my main aim was just to win. Cowley (28) set her long jump PB on the way to a new heptathlon best at the Victoria championships last month. Her 5958 points leaves her just 92 shy of qualifying for the London Olympics and the next few months will see her desperately trying to find those extra fractions over the eight disciplines. To some extent, that means sacrificing her medal chances at these national championshps. She wont attempt a three-peat of high jump titles, nor will she try to improve on her runner-up finish in last years 100m hurdles final. Over the next two days, Im more focused on the technical aspects were working on in the shot and javelin, and basically continuing my preparation for my next heptathlon. Im now disappointed I didnt enter the high jump, because I had a really big training PB during the week and obviously Im in good shape, but Id rather jump high in a heptathlon. Cowley will head to Europe in May for two further attempts at cracking the Olympic qualifying standard.
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