John Rivan has started the indoor track season in great form and is edging closer to Peter Pulu’s national record in the 60m sprint. Pulu set the record of 6.79 seconds at the 1995 World Indoor Championships in Barcelona and later that year broke Takale Tuna’s 100m record of 10.60 seconds with a time of 10.40 secs in Germany during the lead up to the World Championships in Gothenburg.
21 year old Rivan burst onto the scene as a 15 year old at the 2008 National Championships in Lae when he was a runaway winner in all three sprinting events. He ran a scintillating 6.84 seconds at Grinnell University Iowa last Saturday and followed this up with an impressive 22.26 seconds for the 200m. Theo Piniau is also coming into good form in the 400m posting a time of 50.30 seconds, compared to the 51.05 he ran at the same Meet last year. Another athlete in good form in the USA is nineteen year old Adrine Monagi who is posting impressive performances in a range of events as she prepares for the Heptathlon. Monagi ran a personal best 7.71 seconds for the 60m in both the heats and the final and followed this up with a huge PB of 9.16 seconds in the 60m hurdles. She also cleared 1.57m in the high jump and joined her team mates in the 4*400m relay to cap off another busy day.
Meanwhile a number of PNG athletes were in action in Brisbane at the Glynis Nunn Shield event on Saturday evening. Donna Koniel set a new personal best of 2min 12.36 seconds in the 800m and Mowen Boino got his 2015 campaign off to a good start by running away with the 400m hurdles in an impressive time of 52.37 seconds. Toea Wisil and Miriam Peni both won their 200m races in impressive fashion and Betty Burua ran the 400m hurdles for the first time since the 2013 Pacific Mini Games. Coach Glynis Nunn was far from impressed with Burua’s hurdling technique however her current fitness enabled her to set a personal best for this event of 61.02 seconds. Nelson Stone was happy with his time of 21.97 seconds for the 200m at this early stage of his season.
Picture: John Rivan 60m race
Last Modified on 24/02/2015 18:32