Brent Newdick opens with a 11.11s 100m in the decathlon at World Champs

Brent Newdick is the only New Zealand athlete competing in this morning's session.

Newdick is in the decathlon and in the first of 10 events over two days of competition, the 100m, Newdick recorded 11.11s (-0.4), 0.04s outside his personal best. He scored 836 points for this performance, placing him 23rd out of 38.

He moves on to the long jump and shot put this morning.

In the evening session today Newdick will compete in the high jump, and 400m.
Trey Hardee of USA was the fastest in the 100m with 10.45s for 987 points.

In the long jump Newdick's first attempt was out to 7.27m (+0.9). He has a PB of 7.32m.
He fouled the second attempt, just a fraction over the the take off board. But in the third round his take off was perfect soaring out to a personal best of 7.42m (+1.9). His points were 915 taking his total to 1751, improving to 14th overall.

Elena Vinogradova, coach with the team, said that Newdick is proceding extremely well.

"Brent is doing very well, this is his first world champs and the pressure is huge, especially considering that he is in top shape and it makes it even harder," she said.

"The long jump was so exciting for a while because he's been preparing and he's done all hard work and finally got what we wanted on a very big day for him. He had a very good race in the 100m as well in front of the crowd for half of the race, but then lost his place a little bit, which is part of this excitment and being first time at the world champs."

Vinogradova said that their goal is a to hit a final score of 8000 points for the first time.

In the shot put, where Newdick has a personal best of 14.48m, his first round attempt was 13.19m. He improved to 13.80m in round two and to 14.35m in round three for 750 points and a total of 2501 for 16th overall. Trey Hardee leads after three events with a score of 2814.

Newdick was on form in the high jump equalling his personal best of 1.99m for 794 points and a total of 3295 for 16th overall.

He narrowly missed one of his attempts at 2.02m.

In the final event on day one Newdick had a solid 400m and finished strongly in 50.10s for 810 points. Newdick scored a first day total of 4105 points for 19th place overall. The competition leader is Oleksiy Kasyanov of Ukraine with 4555.

Newdick said that it was a solid day all round.

"Everything is going to plan and I'm looking forward to a good day tomorrow. Nothing is down at all so it's all looking on the right track and I had a pb in the long jump so I'm happy with that. Training has been going really well for every event, so I don't put any pressure on myself by setting goals because then you get them or fail them. I've been taking each event as it comes and at the moment seems to be working pretty well so I'm happy with the way it's going," said Newdick.

Newdick said that the atmosphere is amazing.

"I had a similar crowd at the Melbourne Commonwealths, but the atmosphere in the Northern Hemisphere in athletics is just amazing, I love it out there it's fun and I just can't wait to get a bit more of it. When the Germans get going it's pretty wild" he added.