Hamish Kerr.... the 2.14m man

Until recently Billy Crayford from Wellington had enjoyed a stranglehold on the national high jump title.

The 27 year old had won the event for seven consecutive years. This year he was upstaged by a young, confident and rapidly improving school leaver from Auckland Grammar School.

In December, Hamish Kerr leapt 2.05m to win his first National Secondary Schools’ title. He improved on that distance with a leap of 2.08m in January.

In March at the National Championships in Wellington, Kerr launched himself 2.14m to win the National under-20 and open titles.

Kerr’s leap was the seventh best by a Kiwi. He has improved his personal best from 1.93m to 2.14m in less than two years. Crayford’s all-time best is 2.15m achieved in 2011 when he was 23.

Kerr explains conditions weren’t ideal for jumping at Newtown Park either:

“It rained heavily at times and there was a gusty cross-breeze. I was lucky I jumped while it wasn’t raining, but still it was tricky.”

In fact the weather was so poor that American Mike Powell, the world record holder for the long jump, cancelled his record attempt for the World Masters 51-55 world record.

Kerr’s progress is remarkable given that he concedes he didn’t take the sport seriously until Year 12. Kerr explains it took the passing of his first coach to really motivate him.

“Chris Trabing passed away in April of 2013. He was the guy who got me into the sport. He was so passionate. He gave a lot of his time and really understood the sport.”

Trabing is amoung the top-ten high jumpers in New Zealand history. Trabing’s replacement Paul Lothian was a fairly handy athlete in his own right. The former national decathlete champion guided Kerr through until the end of last year, but was replaced by Anne Thomson; Kerr explains the reason for the change.

“I am studying commerce at Massey University in Palmerston North. I wanted to get away from the big city, but I needed to work with a local coach. Anne is really good. She is a level 3 IAAF coach.”

Kerr’s next goal is to break Glenn Howard’s national record of 2.30m achieved in 2000, a year that Howard attended the Sydney Olympics.

“It sound’s a long way off”, but Kerr warns, “I am getting better all the time.”

 

Note

Eliza McCartney is the only other athlete in New Zealand to hold a National Secondary Schools’ and open title at present. McCartney from Takapuna Grammar School won three consecutive National Secondary Schools’ pole vaulting titles and broke the national record in 2014 when she leapt 4.45m in winning a bronze at the World Junior Championships.