{"id":236870,"date":"2026-01-16T20:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T20:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236870\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T20:28:10","slug":"central-hawkes-bay-world-no-1-briana-stephenson-steps-up-at-potts-classic-athletics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/236870\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Hawke\u2019s Bay world No 1 Briana Stephenson steps up at Potts Classic athletics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Her weekend included a personal best in the shot put, and going 0.01s shy of her personal best in the 100m hurdles, in which she is also the reigning national champion.<\/p>\n

On Saturday she will target a record in the 60m hurdles in the first national short-course athletics championships being staged as part of the Potts Classic<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also pacing the women\u2019s 800m, in which several runners are after personal goals, including teenage twins Sarah and Lisa Hellyer, Rosa Twyford and Camryn Smart, daughter of Toni Hodgkinson, the holder of the national record since the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996.<\/p>\n

Asked where she can improve in her bid for the women\u2019s heptathlon record, Stephenson said: \u201cThe high jump, long jump and 800m were a little down on my best so I know I\u2019ve got approximately 150 points up my sleeve.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I hope to continue dropping my hurdles time over the season, and building consistency with throwing 40m-plus in the javelin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other headliners at the Potts Classic, the first night in Athletics New Zealand\u2019s Summer Circuit include sprinters Zoe Hobbs, Tiaan Whelpton and Lex Revell-Lewis, runners Sam Ruthe and Sam Tanner<\/a>, and Hastings-raised World Championships shot put representative Nick Palmer.<\/p>\n

The next generation from the national secondary schools championships held on the same track in December is also well represented, including sprinter Kendra Scally and Ruthe\u2019s 15-year-old sister, Daisy.<\/p>\n

Meeting director Richard Potts said numerous athletes will be chasing targets from personal bests to Commonwealth Games qualifying stands and World Youth Championships standards.<\/p>\n

The Potts Classic<\/a> will be held at the Mitre 10 Sports Park William Nelson Athletics Precinct, with field events starting at 1.30pm and track events at 4pm, with the men\u2019s and women\u2019s 800m races closing the night soon after 7.30pm. <\/p>\n

Doug Laing is a Hawke\u2019s Bay Today reporter based in Napier with more than 40 years\u2019 experience reporting news and sports in the Hawke\u2019s Bay region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Her weekend included a personal best in the shot put, and going 0.01s shy of her personal best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[139931,44974,1975,49638,16671,85,1561,139930,1853,4915,5194,305,1976,139932,685,2374,111,139,7805,69,6777,139934,26023,1534,213,1441,139933,3057,88358,810,4767,1533,18457,102,377],"class_list":["post-236870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-1ranked","tag-allan","tag-at","tag-athlete","tag-athletics","tag-australia","tag-bay","tag-briana","tag-central","tag-classic","tag-hastings","tag-have","tag-hawkes","tag-heptathlete","tag-last","tag-meeting","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-nz","tag-performance","tag-personalbest","tag-potts","tag-saturday","tag-sports","tag-stephenson","tag-stephensons","tag-steps","tag-sylvia","tag-up","tag-weekend","tag-will","tag-winning","tag-with","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}