NSW Cross Country Relays Big Success
Our club put together 11 teams and came home with three gold and one bronze medal. On top of that we had two 4th places. Open man team dominated the main race with Jeremy Roff (pictured left) clocking the fastest 4k of the day - 11:17.
The day started with U12 boys coming home in 7th place with Sebastien Moir clocking the fastest split of 7:07. U14 boys team were one place better. The opening leg was run by Georgia Evans, who helped boys with very fast 7:26 split in third place. Strong finish by Finn Mergler (7:03) wasn't enough to get us into medal position but all in all it was a very good run by the whole team.
 U16 and U18 boys (pictured left) totally dominated their race. James King, who ran the opening leg for U16 team, had the fastest 3k in this age group - 9:37. Timothy Spehr and Matthew Scott strongly held the first place and Sam Gottlieb finished with another sub 10 minutes run. Not to be outdone, U18 boys (Winter Premiership winners last year in U16 age group) won their race by more then minute from second placed Illawong. Nathan Derriman and Mark Kriedmann built up a big lead running 9:15 and 9:34 respectively. Jordan Williams continued aggressively on the muddy course and Zac Rea casually finished with 9:20 split.
U20 boys were also dominant, at least in the begining. Francis Torok ran the fastest split in this age group, 9:06. We were in the lead, closely followed by Sutherland. Ben Adler and Demid Gouroulev managed to keep the lead. The last runner was David Hazan who filled in for Josh Johnson 30 min before start (Josh was caught in traffic and couldn't make it in time). Dave did a good job to get team finished in third place.
U16 girls missed the third place for only 6 seconds. It has to be said that Samantha King and Tamara Viner stepped up from U14 age group. As expected, Amity Delaney ran the fastest split of 11:08.
It would be nice to get this same team together next year, this is a very talented bunch.
The main race of the day was to be run on by now very muddy course. We were getting a bit nervous about Harry Summers who was little bit late, but then Harry rocked up in style (without competition number of course). Bart McPherson opened up with very good 12:27 getting our team in 5th place. We were 50 seconds behind Kembla Joggers after Kevin Batt opened up with 11:37. Harry brought us back to second place to only 15 seconds behind leading Kembla Joggers. Then it was Jeremy's turn, he was looking effortless, even on the slope next to school. Carefully avoiding mud, Jeremy clocked the fastest 4k on the day - 11:17. Even Paul Arthur was impressed. Jeff finished strongly securing nearly 40 seconds win for our team. We also had good B team with Liam Ridings, Courtney Carter, Cain Partridge and Daniel Keating. Courtney recently join our club after moving (for good he told me) from Western Australia. Welcome to our club Courtney!
Our 35+ and 45+ team ran really well and both teams finished in 4th place.
Full results are available here. Photos from this competition will be available this weekend.
Thank you all for participating and making our club proud again!
Alija Kajan
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