Scerri Brings Brilliant Best | Pacific Games Day Two

Heptathlete Mia Scerri stole the show on Day Two of athletics action at the Pacific Games with a career best performance to shatter the meet record and qualify for the 2024 World U20 Championships, while sprinters Calab Law and Georgia Harris dashed to glory in the blue riband events.

After a personal best onslaught on the opening day, 18-year-old Mia Scerri (Darren Clark) capped off a golden campaign by being crowned the Pacific Games champion when setting a new championship record of 5624 points in the Women’s Heptathlon.  

Capitalising on her strong form with a leap of 6.19m (+0.4) in the Long Jump, the 18-year-old overcame back soreness in the Javelin to round out her seven events with a run of 2:24.09 over 800m, punching in an official qualifying performance for the 2024 World Under 20 Championships (5300 points).

World Under 20 bronze medallist Calab Law (Andrew Iselin) turned the tables on training partner Lachlan Kennedy (Andrew Iselin) in the Men’s 100m as Australia secured gold and silver, with Law overcoming a pair of slow starts on Day One to bolt to victory in 10.40 when it mattered.

"Obviously I came out of the blocks pretty good and felt good, the track is pretty hard so it has a lot of good give. I just got run down in the end because Calab is obviously an incredible 200m runner, I run a lot against him in training so I'm used to it by now. It was the first big competition of the season so I liked the way it went," Kennedy said.

Kennedy continued his rise to prominence to take second place in 10.49-seconds, while Georgia Harris (Paul Pearce) sealed the Australian 100m double with a run of 11.70 to stretch away from the field in the home straight, progressing with faster times through each of the three rounds.  

22-year-old Jack Lunn (Steve Fabris) delivered a masterclass in front-running over 800m to be crowned the 2023 Pacific Games champion, striding to the early lead and dictating terms. The Australian glided to a meet record time of 1:48.43 to finish ahead of Trans-Tasman rival Jack Paine (1:51.72) and Fiji’s Vishant Reddi (1:51.80) who was valiant in pursuit.

"I had looked at the record but I didn't realise it was all the way back from 1999, so it was really cool to get that and put on a bit of a show. I don't have a big kick finish like some 800m runners, so I figured the best way that I could make a vie for the gold was to go out hard and hopefully have a big enough gap to sustain it," Lunn said.

Earlier in the day, Ellie Beer (Brett Robinson) safely navigated the first round of the Women’s 400m to qualify as the top seed for the Final in a time of 55.24, but she will have company in the form of New Zealand’s Camryn Smart who won her heat with a 56.45-second performance.  

By Lachlan Moorhouse, Athletics Australia
Posted: 29/11/2023