It is staging the Dame Yvette Williams Memorial and the South Island combined events competition.
Veteran athletics coach Raylene Bates said there were the Ness Cup (handicap mile) and the Otago 5000m championship to look forward to as well.
But she felt the senior men’s decathlon would be a highlight.
Canterbury’s Max Attwell shapes as the leading contender. He is particularly strong in pole vault and long jump and is the Oceania decathlon champion.
Attwell suffered a setback when he tore his Achilles last year but produced a stunning performance at the Oceania championships in Queensland in June.
He achieved a personal best of 7635 points to lift him to sixth on the all-time New Zealand decathlon rankings and clinch a gold medal.
"I think he’ll be looking at advancing on that 7635 points he got in Mackay, but obviously that will be weather-dependent as well," Bates said.
The forecast has some rain in it, so that could prove a dampener.
Otago long jumper Shay Veitch is another athlete to keep an eye on.
The 21-year-old is hoping to eclipse the long-standing national record of 8.05m set by Bob Thomas in January 1968.
He has shown some hot early-season form. He set a new Otago senior men’s record with a leap of 7.72m at the Caledonian late last month.
That jump bodes well for a strong season. He is as determined as he is confident of finding the extra distance needed to create history.
Otago long distance runner Rebekah Greene is running in the Otago 5000m championship and using the race to see where she is at as she comes out of winter training.
Dyani Shepherd-Oates and Teagan Ashley will go head to head in the women’s hammer throw. They are both opening their season, as is para athlete Holly Robinson.
She claimed gold in the javelin F46 in Tokyo last year and will be keen to post a good throw before next year’s world championships in France in July.
Para long jumper Anna Grimaldi, who also won gold in Tokyo, is not expected to compete this weekend.
"She is just rebuilding and is likely to come out after Christmas," Bates said.
While it is very early in the season, Bates said the athletes would be well-rested and she was hopeful of seeing some good performances.
Bates was hoping for about 150 entries this weekend, but she said it was hard to tell as people often left their entry until quite late.
