WELLINGTON JUNIOR ATHLETICS CHAMPS

At the end of the season, we hold our Athletics Wellington Junior Championships at Newtown Park for 7 to 15-year-olds. 

In 2024 the champs are being held as follows:

Wellington Junior Champs Day 1 on Sunday 3rd March at Newtown Park- start time 9.00 am

Wellington Junior Champs Day 2 on Sunday 10th March at Newtown Park - start time 9.00 am.

Online entries are required for Wellington Junior Champs  -   To compete you must be listed as a financial competitive member in your club's database.

Reserve Day  Sunday 25th March

Entry details will be included in our newsletters and updated here when available.

​​​​​​​GENERAL INFO ABOUT THE CHAMPS
Holding the events over two weekends give athletes the opportunity to compete in multiple events.

We encourage all our athletes aged between 7yrs - 15yrs to compete in our Athletics Wellington Junior Track & Field Championships.  The Champs also act as our club champs and results will be used for determining age grade winners for our annual prizegiving which takes place at the end of the season.

A reminder about uniforms and other bits and pieces:
- Black shorts (if wearing bike shorts, or leggings these must be above the knee)
- Club Singlet (WHAC singlet)
- Age patch with your name written on it, and pinned to your top
- If you are cold take tracksuit/warm overclothes with you to the event to put on in between jumps/throws attempts etc.  You must remove these though when you actually compete.
- Spikes – Cone or Christmas tree spikes are allowed. 6mm on track, and 9mm for the high jump.  (Please note. spikes can only be worm by age grade10 years upwards).
- If wearing spikes you must use blocks at the start of the 100 – 400m.  If you are aged 10-11 and are not wearing spikes, you must do a crouch start.
- Go to your events WHEN called by the announcer.  The start time in the program is the start time, not the turn-up and do a warm-up time – that should be completed.  The announcers will also call for Section 1 or Heats 1-6 etc if there are multiple groups at each age level in some events.  So please listen carefully.
- Sometimes there are a number of scratchings due to injury, or other things that prevent an athlete from competing.  When this happens and means that the heat goes straight to a final instead, then that final will be run at the HEAT time, NOT THE FINAL TIME.
- If you are listed as a reserve for a final, it pays to turn up for the marshaling of that final in case one of the other finalists have withdrawn.  The reserves will be put into the final in order of the fastest time (ie. Reserve 1, then Reserve 2).
- Marshaling for field events will be at the event (ie. Go straight to long jump, high jump, etc when called).
- Marshaling for tracks events will be in a marshaling tent/area where you will be allocated your lanes etc.
- Programs with full listings of athletes in each event etc will be available for sale at the BBQ/ shop.
- We should have two team managers available as a point of contact for issues such as incorrect uniform, not entered into an event, injury, etc.  These team managers are also who you should contact if you wish to lodge a protest.  (Please note protests must be lodged within 15 minutes of results being announced and/or published).

CLUB DUTIES
Our club duties are to provide at least 4 parents at the finish line of the track events, ensuring that athletes stay in their lane (this is important as we are not focusing on their place/time in the sprints – the camera/electronic timer takes care of that), but for distances of 800m and over, we will need to determine their finishing order.  If the camera /timer is not working, we will need to revert to manual timing.  For this, remember that you start the watch or push the recording button on the sight of the smoke from the starter's gun, not the sound of the gun.  We will allocate families a 1-hour stint in either the first or second Sunday (this time will vary depending on the number of entries, and maybe more or less - hopefully the latter so you can see more of your children competing.