High Jump athlete Hamish Kerr will not compete at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n
He said it was a difficult decision to reach, but ultimately, he is not ready to compete at the level he expects of himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a successful, yet incredibly demanding few years, I came into 2026 feeling motivated and excited for the season ahead. Early in the year I felt a bit burnt out and needing to take a step back to reset both mentally and physically. Since then, I\u2019ve been back training and feel I\u2019m making encouraging progress,\u201d said Kerr.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy team and I were working hard to be ready in time for Glasgow 2026 and while I\u2019m pleased with the progress I\u2019ve made, we\u2019ve agreed I\u2019m not quite ready to compete,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Commonwealth Games means a great amount to me. I have fond memories growing up watching the Melbourne 2006 and Gold Coast 2018 Games with my family, as well as Birmingham 2022 when I won my first international gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel I\u2019m moving in the right direction and I\u2019m excited for what\u2019s ahead. I\u2019m looking forward to supporting the rest of the New Zealand Team over the coming days and cheering them all on as they start their campaigns,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kerr and his team believe he is close to a return to competition, possibly in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Team Chef de Mission, Nigel Avery, said the Team are fully supportive of Kerr\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cHamish is an exceptional athlete and a valued leader within both the New Zealand Team and Athletics New Zealand,\u201d said Avery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe fully support his decision and his process to get to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHamish has built his career on striving for excellence and performing at the highest level. While this was a hard decision, it speaks to the standards he holds himself to and the competitor he is. We look forward to seeing him back in action and wish him every success on the road to Los Angeles 2028,\u201d said Avery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High Jump athlete Hamish Kerr will not compete at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. He said it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-544945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544945","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=544945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}