Adrine Monagi

Running in the second of three heats, Monagi ran a very fluent race without touching any hurdles and smashed her personal best time of 13.71secs with a new PNG record time of 13.46. The previous record of 13.52secs was set by Sharon Kwarula in California in the lead up to the 2015 Pacific Games.

Monagi went on to finish sixth in the final with a time of 13.65secs.

Monagi, who has a personal best of 13.82 seconds in the 100m hurdles, won the silver medal in this event at the recent Pacific Games in Apia, clocking 13.99 secs behind Australian Brianna Beahan.

She will be replacing Rellie Kaputin, who sustained an injury recently.

Monagi, who has a personal best of 13.82 seconds in the 100m hurdles, won the silver medal in this event at the recent Pacific Games in Apia, clocking 13.99 secs behind Australian Brianna Beahan.

Rellie Kaputin, Adrine Monagi and Peniel Richard competed at the Lone Star Conference Championships in Commerce, Texas while Wesley Logorava and Robson Yinambe were in action at the Region V Junior College Championships in Arkansas, Kansas.

Poro Gahekave, Shirley Vunatup and Naomi Kerari were at the Texas Tech University in Lubbock for their final meet before the Junior College National Championships next week.

After completing the heptathlon on Thursday/Friday, Monagi then ran the 100m and 100m hurdles heats on Friday, and on Saturday took part in another five events.

Both Peniel Richard and Rellie Kaputin registered very significant performances in the long jump last weekend in Texas, leaping 7.57m and 6.41m respectively.

Although both performances were marginally wind assisted and therefore not recognised as national records, they are both well over the national record marks of 7.21m and 6.27m respectively.

This time Adrine Monagi improved on her national heptathlon record set at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 2 Championships last year.

Monagi ran a personal best of 14.34 seconds in the 100m hurdles and put the Shot 11.04 metres on her way to a points total of 5221 for the seven event heptathlon.

Already in her final season of Inter collegiate athletics at the age of 21, the PNG record holder was competing at her home track in San Angelo Texas alongside teammate Kami Norton who placed second at the recent indoor nationals. 

Rellie Kaputin is having a record breaking season for West Texas A&M University and heads the National Rankings in both Long Jump and Triple Jump.

She will also be hoping for a podium finish (top eight placing) in the high jump.

Another PNG athlete making waves is 20 year old sprinter/hurdler Afure Adah representing Minnesota State University Mankato.

Adah, who represented PNG in the 100m hurdles and 4x400m relay at the 2015 Pacific Games has shown significant improvement this year and is ranked 5^th  in the 200m sprint going into the Championships.