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Valerie Vili celebrates her World Championship gold medal - Source: Reuters -
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World champion Valerie Vili showed strong early season form when she broke her own meet record at the Porrit Classic athletic meet in Hamilton on Saturday.
Vili's 20.25-metre effort from her first throw equalled her New Zealand allcomers and resident record but was short of of her Oceania and national record of 21.07m set while winning the world title in Greece last September. The meet record was 19.66m set in 2008.
Jessica Cerival of France was second with 16.99m .
"It was a pretty good opener," Vili said.
"It obviously sets the standard for the rest of the world and shows them all where we're at.
"First competition and not really anybody here to push me.
"It is always awesome to come down to the Porritt Classic and I've given the crowd a show. I don't compete in New Zealand a lot so it is a great opportunity."
Vili's next competition is in Sydney in a fortnight. She then heads to Melbourne before defending her world indoor title in March.
"My goal for 2010 is to stay unbeaten for as long as possible. I've been unbeaten for two years now. I also want to get a great consistency over 20 metres," she added.
The other highlight from last night's meeting came from Stuart Farquhar, who confirmed his No 1 status in the Commonwealth with a personal best javelin throw of 85.35m.
Elizabeth Lamb secured a Commonwealth Games performance standard of 1.85m in the high jump, Julia Ratcliffe set a New Zealand W16 hammer throw record of 54.38m and Jacko Gill extended his New Zealand M16 and M17 shot put record to 20.66m.
