Preston hugely impressive in retaining Men’s 800m title.
Two Wellington athletes James Preston and Alison Andrews-Paul both retained their National 800m titles in excellent style with impressive front running as the cool crisp southerly change descended upon Newtown park last evening.
Preston ran an astonishing 1 min.44.87 sec time which has only be surpassed the by the legendary Peter Snell when he set the world record of 1 min 44.3 back at Lancaster Park in Christchurch in 1962. Preston’s time was narrowly outside the automatic Paris Olympics qualifying mark of 1.44.70. Preston set a solid pace of 50 sec on lap one to sap the kick out of key rival Sam Tanner stepping down from his 1500m specialist event
Andrews-Paul back from her base in Vancouver ran quicker than last year 2.05.01 running 2.04.54 dominating her race again, following on from last weekend’s win in Auckland.
Full results are availa ble on Athletics.org.nz
