News & Updates

New Zealand 800m champion James Preston is relishing the prospect of taking on his most competitive field of the year at the ITM in Christchurch at Nga Puni Wai on Saturday (26 February).

James has enjoyed an unbeaten start to his season over the two-lap distance with convincing wins in Hastings and Whanganui, but the 24-year-old is looking to step up to the next level at the quality meet – one of only two in New Zealand boasting a World Athletics Continental Tour bronze status.

“I’m looking forward to Saturday,” explains James, who will face the likes of Tokyo 1500m Olympian Sam Tanner (1:48.63) on his seasonal debut, the 2021 national senior 800m silver medallist Dominic Devlin and national U20 champion James Harding. “Craig Motley, one of the meet organisers, has been very accommodating with setting up pacemakers and he has put together a really competitive field in which four or five guys have a PB under-1:50, which is pretty exciting.

“I’m hoping to run 400m pretty hard and go through the bell in 51.5 to 52 seconds,” he says. “I’m hoping the pacemaker can take me through to 500m with the main objective to reach 600m in 1:18. I’m best trying to emulate how the races will go when I head over to Australia next month and I think the ITM will set me up well.”

James, a former World U20 800m semi-finalist, enjoyed the best year of his athletics career in 2021 not only securing his maiden national men’s senior 800m title but also posting a new PB of 1:46.52 in Gold Coast in June to climb to number ten on the all-time New Zealand rankings for the event.

After graduating from his building sciences degree last year, he has opted to take a gap year to focus on his athletics and he says he has enjoyed “one of the best” training periods of his career – significantly developing greater speed thanks to the work of long-time coach Evan Cooper and strength and conditioning coach Adam Allen.

On his seasonal debut at the Potts Classic he claimed a solo 800m win in 1:48.38 before the following weekend repeating the feat at Cooks Classic in Whanganui in a time 0.12 quicker.

So how does the Wellington Scottish athlete assess his opening two 800m races of the campaign?

“In an ideal world I’d probably want to have run a second or so faster in both, but I’m not the best solo runner,” he says. “I’m usually fine for the first 400m running anywhere from 51 to 52 on my own but I think from 300m out (on my own) I find it hard to drive. That’s what happened last year in New Zealand when I consistently ran 1:47 or 1:48 in New Zealand before going over to Aussie and running faster in more competitive races. I think of myself as more of a competitor and running shoulder to shoulder with others.”

Last weekend James also reaffirmed his improved speed by scalping more than a second-and-a-half from his 400m PB, finishing second at the Sir Graeme Douglas presented by Harcourts Cooper & Co in a handy 47.87 in his first competitive race over the one-lap distance for three years. 

James hopes Christchurch can provide a springboard for the likely greater competition he will face in in Australia at the Sydney Track Classic (12 March) and Brisbane Track Classic (9 April) and later on to the European season, where he hopes to further his athletics experiences.

There the goal will be run “consistently fast” and maybe “sneak a couple of 1:45s” which could put him in the possible frame for greater international opportunities yet in the short term it is a date in Christchurch on Saturday, which is his primary focus.

“I finished second there in the 1500m in a PB, so I have good memories of the meet,” he says. “I remember all the cars packed in the car park beforehand which gave it the feel of a European meet. But I’m most looking forward to it being at a well organised meet where I will be up against a top quality field.”

Follow the livestream coverage of the ITM from 2.30pm on Saturday here