{"id":545106,"date":"2026-07-26T18:26:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T18:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/545106\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T18:26:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T18:26:25","slug":"commonwealth-games-worn-out-hamish-kerr-withdraws-from-glasgow-high-jump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/545106\/","title":{"rendered":"Commonwealth Games: Worn-out Hamish Kerr withdraws from Glasgow high jump"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand high jumper Hamish Kerr has officially withdrawn from this year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, due to burnout.<\/p>\n

The Olympic and world champion was last month named among the 21 track and field athletes for the Games, which started on Friday, despite not competing internationally this season.<\/p>\n

Kerr sparked doubt over his Games prospects earlier this month in a social media post<\/a>, explaining the demands of the last few months had caught up with him, and that he was taking a break from training.<\/p>\n

At the time, Athletics New Zealand said the 29-year-old would be at the Games, but a decision on whether he contests the high jump would be made “closer to the time”.<\/p>\n

The defending Commonwealth Games champion had been due to compete in the men’s high jump final on Tuesday morning( NZT), but confirmed overnight he would not be competing.<\/p>\n

“The start of this year, had a massive few years, felt like the body was good and ready to get training, but we realised pretty quickly I was pretty burnt out,” he told reporters in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

“Took a bit of a step back and had a nice physical mental reset just over the last couple of months.”<\/p>\n

Kerr had resumed training and said he was happy with the progress he was making.<\/p>\n

“I’m just not quite ready and not in a position that I want to be to go out there, and do the singlet and the New Zealand team justice.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

Hamish Kerr addresses media at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n

RNZ \/ Adam Burns<\/p>\n

“Unfortunate to make the decision and it was one that was not made lightly,” he said. “I’m super excited to support the rest of the team – not just athletics, but the wider team – and be here for the week, and get behind the New Zealand team.”<\/p>\n

High Performance New Zealand had worked closely with Kerr on his physical and mental wellbeing.<\/p>\n

Kerr had hoped, by arriving in Glasgow, he would be “ready to go”.<\/p>\n

“Just over the last few days, I’ve realised that there’s probably still a little bit of work to do and we will continue to do that in the next few weeks.”<\/p>\n

After winning gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Kerr said he still had his sights on defending his Olympic title in Los Angeles in two years.<\/p>\n

“That is certainly the intention and that is the reasoning behind the time that this has taken.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s important this year to explore these things and really make sure that I’m right for the bigger ones coming forward.”<\/p>\n

When asked if he would be competing again this season, Kerr replied “maybe”.<\/p>\n

Since winning gold at the last Commonwealth Games in 2022, Kerr has won an indoor world champion title, become an Olympic champion and won gold at the world athletics championships.<\/p>\n

Kerr was last in action at the New Zealand track and field Championships in March, where he cleared 2.28m to win his 10th national title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand high jumper Hamish Kerr has officially withdrawn from this year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-545106","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\/545106","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=545106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}