Walsh Withdraws From the Big Shot   9 Feb 2016

“Walsh Withdraws From the Big Shot”

8th February 2016

In breaking news this morning, top Kiwi shot putter and event favourite Tom Walsh has been forced to withdraw from The Big Shot event to be held in Christchurch this afternoon.

Walsh suffered a hip injury in training yesterday, which has not responded to treatment well enough for him to risk competing. “I’m gutted that I can’t take part in this event, I was really looking forward to it. It doesn’t look like the injury is anything too serious but competing on it today could make it a lot worse and cause issues further down the track”.

Event organisers said they were supportive of Walsh’s decision, and respected his need to withdraw. “Tom’s big focus is the Olympic Games in Rio later this year, we certainly wouldn’t put any pressure on him to compete if it might affect his ability to prepare for that”, said event director Paul Coughlan this morning. “Naturally we’re disappointed, but these things happen in elite sport – we’re still looking forward to a great contest across all three main events, and we’re sure that the crowd will be well entertained by what they see.”

Ironically, with the clear favourite removed, the contest now looks far more open between Auckland powerhouse Jacko Gill and the Australian champion Damien Birkinhead. Both young men were strong performers last year, advancing their personal bests to 20.75m and 20.40m respectively, and both will be looking to secure their positions in their national teams to go to Rio in August.

Greater focus will now fall on the Street Mile events, which will also feature trans-Tasman contests on this Waitangi Day holiday. The Elite Women’s race features Angie Petty, Lucy Oliver, and Rosa Flanagan against the two fast Australians Melissa Duncan and Genevieve Lacaze, while in the Elite Men’s Street Mile, Olympic 1500m silver medallist Nick Willis and 800m specialist Brad Mathas will carry NZ hopes against the Australian duo of Ryan Gregson and Brett Robinson.

The event programme and course map are below, for further details go to www.thebigshot.co.nz

ends