Team Petty

NZSS RESULTS 🌟

What a few days for the Team Petty crew at the New Zealand Secondary School Champs in Hastings last weekend 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

Fourteen athletes- 13 from Christchurch and one from Auckland- headed north to race in the Hastings heat ☀️It was a weekend of mixed results, with some athletes excelling and others not quite racing as they would have liked. For some, interrupted build-ups and the simple reality that sport doesn’t always come together played a part, while others were happy with their races and achieved their goals.

The highlights were strong: 3 individual track medals, 7 relay medals, and a number of personal bests and season’s bests across the team. Most importantly, every athlete stepped onto the track and gave their best, and we’re proud of each one of them for that.

Assistant coach Azaliah’s highlight of the weekend? Handing out cold chocolate milk to the athletes post-race- a small but very popular recovery ritual. Assistant coach Arthur seemed to enjoy all the exploring!

Results below 👇

Lily Dunne (age 14)
🥇 Junior Girls 400m Final – 57.08
5th 100m Semi
🥈 4×100m
🥈 4×400m

Otto Church (16)
🥇 Senior Boys Pole Vault (polevault coached by Tom Turner)
Made Senior Boys 800m Semi (while sick)

Isabel Prescott (14)
🥉 Junior Girls 2km Steeple – 7:41.16
🥈 4×400m
🥈 4×100m

Finn Gibson (15)
🥉 Junior Boys 800m Final– 2:00.20 PB

Quinn Moss (17)
4th Senior Boys 800m Final – 1:53.80 PB

Henry Sevier (17)
5th Senior Boys 400m Final – 50.19
🥉 4×400m

Milla Boulton (15)
6th Junior Girls 4km Road Race – 15:13
14th 3000m

Tilly O’Sullivan (16)
8th Senior Girls 400m Final

Charlotte McLaughlan (14)
3rd Junior Girls 400m Heat (9th overall)

Cooper Wightman (18)
4th Senior Boys 800m Semi
🥉 4×400m

Amelia Henstock (17)
6th Senior Girls 800m Semi – (SB in her heat: 2:17.30)
🥈 4×400m

Alyssa Buchan (18)
8th Senior Girls 800m Semi- (PB in her heat: 2:21.80)
8th 1500m Heat

Tahlia Pellow (18)
7th Senior Girls 800m Semi
9th 1500m Heat

Mia McMath (18)
12th Senior Girls 1500m Heat

Congratulations everyone and bring on the rest of the season! ✨✨✨

Ayesha wins the Women’s Masters Mile / New Zealand National Road Masters Mile Championship in Nelson over the weekend with a strong run! 🥇

Such a cool event in only its second year- plenty of New Zealand’s best senior runners, plus a number of internationals, tearing up the streets of Nelson.

It did clash with NZSS this year, but we’re keen to get more of the squad along in 2026!
Well done Ayesha — gutsy work out there 🔥

NZSS post still to come (sorry coaches are moving house this week so busy times 😅)

It’s time to say farewell to Sam 🇺🇸🏃‍♀️👋❤️

Sam joined the squad in July 2020 as a super-talented 13-year-old and has grown into one of New Zealand’s most exciting 800m prospects. Now at 18 she is off to continue to follow her dreams at Boston University!

From day one she showed incredible work ethic- always up for the extra rep, the extra gym session, whatever it took. Over the years she’s collected plenty of medals, with highlights including National U20 800m gold and U20 400m silver in March this year. That 800m was especially gutsy—she led from the gun despite being unwell the week of nationals and on antibiotics.

Sam’s versatility shone through when she took on heptathlon training this summer alongside her 800m training, winning the U20 national title on her first attempt. She capped the summer with a superb 2:07 PB at the Australian U20 Champs. Along the way, she’s broken long-standing records and proven her resilience by overcoming health setbacks and training interruptions.

There have been countless memories over the years at training week in and week out, at races all around the country and at our training camps. Sam’s energy and positivity are contagious. Over the past year she’s added speed / technique training under sprint coach Bev Peterson which has been really helpful. What sets Sam apart is her anaerobic capacity and ability to hold a fierce pace right through the 800m.

We’ll miss Sam, but we’re so excited to see her chase her dreams at Boston University! She’ll thrive both on and off the track!

Let’s go Sam! 🔥

Congratulations to Alyssa Buchan and Milla Boulton for their awesome racing at the Coast2Coast meet on the Gold Coast, Australia, 2 weeks ago- the 10th-13th July.

In the U16 age group Milla won the 1500m and the 3000m and was in the winning 4x400m and 4x100m teams 🥇🥇🥇🥇

In the U20 age group Alyssa was 2nd in the 1500m, and she was in the 2nd place team in the girls 4x400m and 3rd in the mixed 4x400m 🥈🥈🥉

Strong efforts going from Christchurch winter to a track competition on the warm Gold Coast ☀️

Next up National Cross Country in Christchurch in 11 days time! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

Some fun awards at the Team Petty ten-pin bowling and dinner last night! 🎳🍝

Votes from the squad ✅

Missing some of the crew who couldn’t make it. Nice to celebrate Samantha Lascelles before she heads to the US on an athlete scholarship 🇺🇸🏃‍♀️

Massive congratulations to Samantha Lascelles for taking out Junior (U20) Athlete of the year at last nights Canterbury Awards!

Congratulations to all other finalists. Canterbury really is in a strong place. Everyone loved hearing from Olympic Champion Hamish Kerr ✨

Sam's highlights over the past summer season were
➡️National U20 800m Champion 🥇
➡️National U20 Heptathlon Champion 🥇
➡️National U20 400m Silver medalist 🥈
➡️Australian National U20 800m 6th place
➡️New 800m PB 2:07.98
➡️New 100m, 200m, 400m PBs

Sam’s sprint coach Bev and heptathlon coaches part of the puzzle ✨

It was awesome to see Sam flying this summer after all her hard work. We are excited to see her progress to come 🔥

May was a busy month of racing, especially for the high-school age athletes with 3 secondary school competitions on as well as the annual Friday Night Lights race at Ilam Fields

Top 8 results listed below:

➡️Canterbury Secondary School Road Race 13/05

Top 8
Year 9 Girls
Lulu Maley 5th

Junior Boys
Ben Lough CTA 3rd
Fred Fitch CTA 4th

Junior Girls
Milla Boulton 2nd
Isabel Prescott 3rd
Lily Dunne 6th

Senior Boys
Otto Church 7th

Senior Girls
Amelia Henstock 3rd
Nicole Ridd 5th

➡️Friday Night Lights 16/05

Junior mixed race 2nd lap
Finn Gibson 1st overall
Milla Boulton 2nd Girl
Ben Lough 3rd overall

Elimination Mens race
Toby Tasker 2nd

➡️South Island Secondary School Cross Country 25/05

Year 9
Lulu Maley 6th

Junior Girls
Milla Boulton 2nd
Isabel Prescott 3rd

Senior Boys
Otto Church 7th

➡️Canterbury SS Cross Country 29/05

Year 9 Girls
Lulu Maley 8th

Junior Girls
Milla Boulton 2nd
Isabel Prescott 3rd
Lily Dunne 8th

Junior Boys
Finn Gibson 3rd
Ben Lough 6th

Senior Girls
Amelia Henstock 2nd
Nicole Ridd 8th

Senior Boys
Ciaran Harris 7th

Next up is the New Zealand Secondary School Champs in less than 2 weeks time held in Whangārei! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

Fantastic racing from Toby Tasker at the Australian National Championships in Perth last weekend!

For the first time this season, Toby had the opportunity to race in a steeplechase field without needing to lead the whole way—lining up against some of Australia’s best, including Olympians Matthew Clarke and Ben Buckingham.

The early stages saw a tightly packed group before the race began to break open. Toby held his form brilliantly to finish strong, securing 7th place in his Australian senior national debut and clocking a massive 9-second PB—his first time under 9 minutes!

This time puts him number #1 in NZ so far for 2025

On World Athletics points, his steeplechase performance equates to:
- 800m: 1:50.79
- 1500m: 3:47.86
- 3km: 8:09.01
- 5km: 13:58.82
- 10km: 29:25
With the steeplechase being a less frequently raced event, it’s exciting to see how well this stacks up!

Well done, Toby—outstanding performance!

Awesome racing from Samantha Lascelles last weekend at the Australian National Champs in Perth.

After winning her heat in 2:09 on the Thursday, Sam ran a strong race to come 6th in the final with a new PB of 2:07.98 on the Friday! Amazing work Sam 👏

What a season it’s been for Aucklander Quinn Moss. Quinn came to us in July last year and has been working with us remotely, coming down to Christchurch a few times to train with the group.

It has been great to work with Quinn who is super hard working and committed. He has lowered his PBs this summer from an 800m of 1:57.67 to 1:54.05 and 1500m of 4:05.81 to 3:59.66. He is currently 3rd in NZ on the U18 800m rankings for 2025.

After just missing a medal at Athletics NZ Nationals in Dunedin in March (4th in the U18 800m and 6th in the 1500m) Quinn ended the season on a high by winning the Senior 800m final at the North Island Secondary School Champs and 3rd in the 1500m.

The 800m was a tactical race after having the 800m heat on the same day as the final, Quinn running 1:58.13 for the win. He ran 4:01.74 in the 1500m.

Congratulations Quinn, now time for a break before getting into the winter season 🏃‍♂️