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Kiwis reach four more athletics finals after strong start

Julia Ratcliffe makes an attempt at Birmingham 2022.

New Zealand will have another four Commonwealth Games finals to get up for at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham after a positive day of qualifying.

Up first for the track and field Kiwis on Thursday, Julia Ratcliffe and Nicole Bradley managed to qualify for the women's hammer throw final while current national champion Lauren Bruce missed out.

Ratcliffe, the defending champion after winning gold in 2018, opened her qualifying with a 66.41m effort before automatically qualifying with 68.73m throw in her second attempt; the automatic qualification mark for the event is 68m.

Ratcliffe was only one of two throwers to beat the 68m mark to punch their ticket straight to Sunday morning's [NZT] final where she will have a challenge from Canada's Camryn Rogers - the other automatic qualifier.

Rogers threw a Games record 74.68m with her first attempt to wrap up her day early, watching on to see which other 11 competitors would join her from the 17-strong field.

With Ratcliffe also in, Bradley and Bruce continued their efforts to join her with their second and third attempts.

Bradley saved her best for last with a 61.77m effort - the eighth-best mark from the qualifying - while Bruce was unable to register an attempt and finished with three no marks.

After the women's hammer throw, Keeley O'Hagan was the next up looking to make her own mark in the women's high jump after seeing teammate Hamish Kerr claim gold in the men's event the night before.

O'Hagan waited for the bar to be raised to 1.71m before entering the competition and made it with ease on her first attempt.

The bar then went to 1.76m and while the 28-year-old failed on her first try, she was quick to rebound with her next effort to move on to 1.81m.

With six competitors from the first group making 1.81m and only six left attempting the same height in her group, clearing the next bar meant O'Hagan would qualify for the final regardless of whether she made the automatic mark of 1.90m or not as 12 jumpers will contest the gold medal event.

The Kiwi did so on her first attempt, meaning she'll return on Saturday evening NZT for the final.

In the last of the New Zealand action for Thursday's morning session in Birmingham, Sam Tanner lined up in the men's 1500m heats.

The five fastest runners from each of the two heats were to be given automatic places in Sunday morning's [NZT] final and only the two other fastest times outside that would join them - meaning the Kiwi was focused on finishing inside the top five for his race.

After sitting ninth from the opening lap, Tanner made his way up into fifth for the final lap of the contest as part of a congested group of six runners vying for placings.

In a tight finish, Tanner managed to snatch fifth ahead of Australia's Matthew Ramsden by 0.34s.

To put into context how tight the finish was to Tanner's race, he was 0.02s off finishing third with fourth place - Scotland's Neil Gourley - finishing 0.01s ahead of him. The heat winner, Jack Wightman also of Scotland, was 0.31s ahead of the Kiwi.

Then, in the evening session ahead of Connor Bell's own final for the men's discus, Portia Bing made it four-for-four for New Zealand's athletics team with a third-place finish in her 400m hurdles heat, earning her an automatic spot in Sunday morning's final.

Bing finished behind Jamaican duo Shiann Salmon and Janieve Russell with a time of 56.32 - almost two seconds faster than fourth-placed Yanique Haye-Smith from the Turks and Caicos Islands.

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