Three New Zealand athletes went close to qualifying for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games over the weekend.

In New York, yesterday, John Henwood finished 13th in the New York City marathon in 2h 15m 5s, just missing the selection standard by five seconds. Henwood was through the half way in 1h 6m 46s, and he finished five and a half minutes behind the winner Paul Tergat of Kenya.

At the new Waitakere Stadium track on Saturday evening Kate McIlroy, in only her third 5000m, ran a solo 16m 00.35s.
The elements and a lack of competition were against the world mountain running champion, in her bid to secure the Commonwealth Games selection time of 15m 25s.
McIlroy was in top form, in the windy conditions, taking 48 seconds off her personal best.
"That is only my third 5000m, and a PB by 48 seconds, I can't complain about that," said McIlroy.
"It is a good start to the season and I can only improve on it," she added.
McIlroy has another 5000m in Melbourne in two weeks time.
"It will be a more competitive race and hopefully better conditions, it was really windy out there tonight.
"You need two or three other runners up there with you to keep the pace honest, I realised it was not realistic tonight and decided just to aim for a personal best," said McIlroy.
Auckland's Kim Newman was nearly two minutes back in second, in the Waitakere Lions Club sponsored event.

Brent Newdick of Counties Manukau went close to qualifying for the decathlon event at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games with his total score of 7344 points for the ten events.
Newdick scored three personal bests over the two days of competition at Nelson Park Hastings. He was out to 7.33m in the long jump, over the high jump at 1.92m and reached 4.60m in the pole vault. Unfortunately Newdick was down in the discus throw, only managing 35.89m, which cost him in the end achieving the games target of 7500 points. Jordan Vandermade was second with 6988. Sarah Cowley of North Harbour won the women's heptathlon with 5212 points.

English Commonwealth Games representative Tom Mayo powered over the final lap to win the Genesis Energy mile at Waitakere Stadium on Saturday evening.
Mayo stormed home in 4m 6.24s, to hold out New Zealand 800m champion Gareth Hyett, who recorded 4m 7.10s.
Mayo was pleased with his time, coming on top of some hard training sessions.
"That's OK, I decided to go with 600m remaining and try and hold it to the finish. The legs were tired towards the end," said Mayo.
Former New Zealand 1500m champion Ben Ruthe was third in 4m 9.12s.

Sarah Christie of Wellington, made up for her disappointment in missing the start of last week's Auckland half marathon, by winning the annual Round-the-Bridges 12km road race in Hamilton yesterday.
Christie covered the roads alongside the Waikato River, between Fairfield and Cobham bridges in 42m 34s, to beat Papakura's Nyla Carroll by 11 seconds.
Robbie Johnston of North Harbour won the race in 38m 15s, heading in the Macdonald twins, Iain and Kyle from Mt Maunganui.

National 100m and 200m champion James Dolphin of North Harbour was in sharp form at the Auckland Centre meeting clocking an impressive wind assisted 100m of 10.34s. He later came back to win the 200m in a legal 21.05s.
Chantal Brunner of Counties Manukau beat Jane Arnott over 100m in 11.70s, with Arnott reversing the placings in the 200m, winning in 24.05s.

In the American Universities Northern Central Regional cross country championships at Fort Hays State University in Kansas Kim Hogarth, running for Western State, finished fifth in the 10km event. Hogarth recorded 31m 29.10s, just over a minute behind his Western State team mate Kelly Christensen.