The St Hilda's Collegiate senior 4x100m relay team is out to defend its national secondary schools title.
Danica Davies (18), Caitlyn George (17) and twins Joccoaa and Leonie Palmer (16) are part of a talented Otago contingent competing in Timaru over the next three days.
The 43rd annual national secondary schools track and field championships, which also encompass the secondary schools road championships, start with a few field events this afternoon and conclude on Sunday afternoon.
A year ago in Wanganui, Otago athletes won 21 medals - 10 gold, four silver and seven bronze - with one of the gold medals coming courtesy of the St Hilda's 4x100m relay team.
Davies, Mikayla Thorn and the Palmers were in the school's B team a year ago, while George was in the A team.
However, when the A team failed to qualify for the final, the then sports co-ordinator, Trish Conrad, replaced Thorn with George.
It proved to be a master stroke, as George held off Napier Girls' High School's Shannon Gearey down the home straight.
George, one of the best young sprinters in the region, will again run the final stretch this weekend.
Davies will run the first leg, before handing the baton to Joccoaa for the second leg.
That will leave her sister to set up George for a strong finish.
The team has a best time of 49.16sec, and is aiming for a podium finish at the very least, George said.
With each of the four girls busy training for individual events, they have not had as much time as they would have liked to train for the relay race.
Davies, the national junior heptathlon champion, surprised even herself to win the senior girls shot put last year, and will attempt to defend her title in Timaru.
The year 13 pupil has also entered the 100m hurdles, javelin and long jump in her last secondary schools championships.
Davies has been offered an athletics scholarship at the University of Hawaii next year but is still considering her options.
George, who won bronze in the senior girls 200m last year, will line up in the 100m and 200m this weekend.
There are six Otago sprinters entered in the 100m, including George and Leonie.
Christina Ashton, of Queen's High School, who won silver in the senior girls 100m hurdles in Wanganui, has also entered.
She has consistently been the fastest girl over 100m at the weekly track and field meets so far this season in Dunedin.
Emma Ward, of Otago Girls' High School, Lily Cunningham, of Columba College, and Jasmine Ng, of Waitaki Girls' High School, are the other Otago runners in the event.
Cunningham, George, Ward and Leonie contested a thrilling 15-17 years 100m race at the Caledonian Ground on Saturday, with just 0.27sec separating them.
Cunningham won in 13.02sec, just 0.04sec faster than George.
In addition to the 100m, Leonie will also compete in the senior girls long jump, while Joccoaa is entered in the 400m and triple jump.
Adriana Mawhinney, of Dunstan High School, won silver in the senior girls triple jump last year and is back to have a shot at gold.
Ashton, who won the junior women's 100m hurdle title at the national track and field championships in Wellington in March, will be out to avenge her narrow defeat a year ago to Phoebe Edwards, of Wellington East Girls' College.
Running into a 3.5m-per-second wind, Edwards pipped Ashton by 0.06sec last year.
Two other Otago hurdlers - Felix McDonald (17) and Maddy Spence (18) - are also strong medal contenders.
Spence, a year 13 pupil at Columba College, won gold in the senior girls 300m hurdles last year, and is also the Otago 17 years record holder (43.85sec).
McDonald attends King's High School and is entered in the senior boys 110m and 300m hurdles, and the long jump.
McDonald finished fifth in both the 110m hurdles and the long jump at the youth Commonwealth Games in Samoa in September.
Among other Otago athletes to keep an eye on the next three days. -
• Oli Chignell (John McGlashan) in the senior boys 1500m, 3000m, 2000m steeplechase and 6km road race.
• Rory O'Neill (King's High School) in the senior boys 200m.
• Hannah Ashton (Taieri College) in the junior girls 80m hurdles, triple jump and high jump.
• Schuyler Orr (Waitaki Boys') in the senior boys 100m, 200m and triple jump.
• Samantha Burke (Mt Aspiring College) in the senior girls 3000m.
• Hugh McLeod-Jones (Otago Boys') in the senior boys shot put, hammer throw and discus.
• Samantha Nicholls (Dunstan High School) in the junior girls 100m.
