ATHLETICS: Nagel sets sights high on podium finish | Hawkes Bay Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Hawkes Bay

United States-bound Hawke's Bay athlete Laura Nagel is buzzing about her comeback from a lengthy injury spell.

Nagel, who will start a four-year scholarship at Providence College, Rhode Island, in August, was unable to run for six months over the winter because of a knee injury. She was given the all clear to resume training in November and, last month, won the 4km road race at the national secondary schools athletics championships in Timaru.

The Taradale High School product celebrated her return to the track with a third placing in the mile event at Wanganui on Tuesday night.

This meeting was the climax to a Young Olympians Camp where Nagel, 17, and other youngsters aiming for the 2016 Olympics had the opportunity to race against many of the country's best.

"I felt really good and the conditions were perfect," Nagel told SportToday.

Naturally, she hopes that buzz continues tomorrow night when she tackles the feature event at the 11th annual Sylvia Potts Classic meeting in Hastings - the Oxenham Family Sylvia Potts Memorial 800m.

 Nagel finished third in this race last year and will be among 16 starters tomorrow.

"While you always aim to win, I'll be happy with a top three placing again in what will be another classy field.

"The others will be more race fit than me but I will be out to do my best in front of the home crowd and try and get as close to them as possible," said Nagel.

She is right about the quality of the field. The country's second, third and fourth-ranked athletes over this distance, Canterbury's Angie Smit and Hannah Newbauld and Anna Roach from Wellington, will all start.

Smit has run 2m 07.74s this summer and like her fellow competitors has an extra incentive to clock 2m 04s, the personal best of Olympian Sylvia Potts who the meeting is named after.

A bonus of $400 will be won by the athlete or athletes who match or better the mark.

The first winner of this event 11 years ago, Demelza Murrihy-Topp, will be among tomorrow night's starters.

Nagel did plenty of cycling and swimming during the winter and her coach, Mike Cull, a long-time Hawke's Bay Ramblers Cycling Club member, got her involved with Ramblers events.

"I really enjoyed it," said Nagel who will make the 1500m her priority in the US with the 3km, 5km and cross-country also on her schedule.

During the coming months, Nagel hopes to qualify for the 1500m and 3km events for the July world junior championships in Canada. After tomorrow night's meeting, Nagel's attention will turn to the Porritt Classic in Auckland on February 13 and then the Australian junior championships and New Zealand nationals in March.

She will be the only Kiwi starting at Providence College in August but New Zealand middle-distance runner Kim Smith graduated from Providence in 2005.

Auckland's two-time Commonwealth Games discus gold medallist and 1997 world champion, Beatrice Faumuina, 35, will be the Classic's star attraction.

She is eyeing this year's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and has bettered the performance standard of 56m at every meeting she has tackled this season, including a 61.1m effort in Wellington.

"If we get the northeasterly breeze, I'm expecting Beatrice will go close to 60m here," said Classic manager Allan Potts.

Other Hawke's Bay athletes with strong chances of a podium finish include sprinter Emma Blake in the 100m and 200m events, Ben Harrison in the pole vault, Neville Smith in the 3000m and Eric Speakman in the 1000m.

This weekend's Wellington trials for the national crosscountry team for the March world championships has cut some of tomorrow night's fields in the long-distance events.