Taryn spins to discus bronze

Masters of Teaching student Taryn Gollshewsky (Central Queensland University) has mastered the wet conditions better than most, taking the bronze medal at the 2017 Summer Universiade in Taipei.

The drizzly conditions played havoc on most of the 12-woman field, with Gollshewsky herself fouling three of her six attempts, but pulling one together to secure her first international medal at a senior level.

Gollshewsky’s first throw of 53.82m was enough to grant her an additional three attempts as the sixth best performer, but it was her fifth attempt of 58.11m that propelled the 24-year-old into the medal positions.

"It was really tough conditions out there," Gollshewsky said afterwards.

“For the first three rounds it was pouring rain and everybody was below standard - everybody was performing quite poorly.”

“I struggled a little bit with the wet circle but I managed to finally get one out there.”

“I knew that the gold and silver places weren't doing anything that I couldn't do so I just needed to relax and trust the process and really drive into my throw, drive hard with my knee and I managed to pull one together which was great.”

A recent Australian representative at the IAAF World Championships in London, the performance succeeds Gollshewsky’s ninth place finish at the 2015 Summer Universiade in Gwangju.

“The world championships were amazing,” Gollshewsky said.

“But the World University Games was the focus all year for me so to walk away with bronze I'm pretty stoked.”

After a bit of rest and recovery after what has been a big season, Gollshewsky will then focus all of her attention on the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast next April.

“The Gold Coast Games have been a goal of mine for four years now, ever since Glasgow, and yeah, I'm really really excited for that and hopefully I can get a podium finish there as well.”

European U23 bronze medallist Kristin Pudenz from Germany won the event with her first attempt of 59.09m, while American Carolyn Allman took the silver with 58.36m.

It was a busy but ultimately successful day for decathlete Kyle Cranston (Australian Catholic University), who started his 10-event campaign in blistering fashion, leading the competition at the end day 1 with a first day personal best total of 4016 points.

With a total of three personal bests out of his five events so far, Cranston won his heat of the 100m in a PB of 11.12 (-0.4), before a 7.04m (+0.5) performance in the long jump. He then followed with a PB throw of 13.76m in the shot put, 1.98m clearance in the high jump and finished the day with a half a second PB in the 400m, stopping the clock in 48.99 seconds.

Cranston is on track to surpass his previous decathlon personal best of 7703 points, the mark he set when he won the 2016 NSW Combined Event Championships.

The Sport/Event Management student finished eighth in the decathlon at the 2015 Summer Universiade in Gwangju.

New Zealand’s Aaron Booth currently sits in second place with 4009 points while South African Fredreich Pretorius sits in third place with 3821.

On the track Monash University’s Georgia Griffith has stormed home in the final straight to book herself a place in Friday night’s 800m final.

Stopping the clock in 2:03.17, Griffith overtook a number of her competitors in the final 80 metres to place second in her semi-final, and auto-qualify as the fifth fastest heading into the final.

In the morning session both our green and gold javelin throwers, both of whom hail from the University of Queensland, William White and Liam O’Brien, progressed to the final of their event planned for Saturday evening.

White reached 74.16m to qualify in 10^th place, while O’Brien was 2cm behind his teammate with 74.14m in 11^th place.

In the women’s hammer throw, University of Southern Queensland’s Lara Neilson has also put herself into the medal round with a third attempt performance of 60.42m to auto-qualify for the final 12 on Saturday afternoon.

Australian distance running pair of Riley Cocks (Flinders University) and Bryce Anderson (University of Canberra) took the track for the 25-lap event and finished eighth and 12^th respectively. Cocks ran 30:47.00 while Anderson finished in 31:14.22.