NSW Road Relays 2010 - Report
What a fantastic effort by Randwick Botany Harriers relay teams in Wollongong. Our club put together 10 teams and we came home with a swag of medals. U14 girls, U18 boys, Open Men and 35+ Men won gold while U16 girls and U16 boys won silver medal. It is not bragging to say we dominated the competition.
The day started with U14 girls. This is a quite new team, except for Georgia Evans, the other girls had debut in RBH uniforms. And there is so much potential and enthusiasm in this team. They meant business from the word go. Georgia Evans opened up with exceptional 7:02 leg and Lily Delooze, Amy Delooze and Dominica Lucas all run around 7:30 mark and won their age group by nearly a minute.
In under 12 category we had two individual runners: Ellen Kriedman and Gaby Mastroianni. Both girls gave their best. This is Gaby's debut at State Road Relays and it seems that she enjoyed her race very much.
In the next race we featured with U16 girls and U16 boys teams. Girls team ran together at State Cross Country Relays and we they are worth a medal, but which one. Our fastest runners Samantha King and Amity Delaney were running first and last leg. Good opening leg by Samantha King saw our team already in medal contention. Gabrielle Vanderham and Tamara Viner kept our team's position very well. Coming into last lap (1.5k to go) Amity Delaney was about 120m behind leading Kembla Joggers team. She was closing the gap gradually but in the end it proved to be too much and we finished only 4 seconds behind. Nevertheless, fantastic effort and silver medal.
Under 16 boys were in fact mixed bag of two U14 boys (Chris O'Brien and Hugh Gotlieb) and two U16 boys (Sam Gottlieb and James King). We didn't expect much from this team as competition is always hot in this age group. After a fast opening lap by Sam Gottlieb we thought our team will slip back after Hugh and Chris finish their leg. But Hugh Gottlieb raised to the occasion and run possibly the race of his life. Chris O'Brien didn't loose much ground either and kept our team in 4th place, just behind third. It was down to James King to try impossible. James caught Nowra runner after 1k and put us in third place. In the very exciting finish James overtook Kembla Joggers team in the last 100m securing silver medal for our team. His overall time was an awesome 9:30.
This year, first time after many years, we put together Men 55+ team. Paul Feian, our club secretary, showed initiative and formed the team. All members but one (John McGrath) are over 60. Peter Gottlieb ran respectable first leg in 18:05. Ken Goldman and Paul Feain ran the best they can and John McGrath finished strongly to place our team in 10th place in 55+ age group.
The main race started at 3pm with Open Men, 35+ Men and U18 Men running together. The Open Men race is the icing on the cake and means a lot to our club. This year it was hard to select A team among so many good runners.
Top 3 spots were relatively easy. Based on current form Jeff Hunt, Harry Summers and Courtney Carter are our three best runners at the moment. But there were few uncertainties. One of them, Bradley Woods, is on the comeback trail to full fitness. The other guys who were contenders for the fourth spot include Bart McPherson, Liam Ridings, always good Nick Cope and couple of youngsters such as the likes of Francis Torok and Zac Rea. After short consultation with Brad, Nick and club captain Jeff Hunt we decided to give chance this time to Bart McPherson. Bart was proven member of U20 team last year and this year his form is on the way up. We decided to go in this order: Bart, Courtney, Harry and Jeff. At the same time we put Bradley and Nick in the first leg our our Open B team and 35+ team respectively. This way Brad could test his form like in proper race while we hoped that Nick would hang close to leaders and give a good chance to 35+ team to win their age group.
After first lap (2k) the order was: James Nipperes (Sydney University), Bradley Woods (RBH B), James Kan (Hills). Bart McPherson was in about 10th place, followed by Nick Cope couple of places behind. The top three order stayed all the way with Woods holding his position and clocking around 11:32. Nick Cope managed to change about 10-15m ahead of Bart. At that stage A team had lot of work to do but we knew that our fastest runners are yet to come. Courtney Carter raised to the occasion and brought us back into contention with brisk 11:37 split. Harry Summers was next in line and he didn't disappoint - 11:34 split and we were in the lead. Jeff Hunt, although running on his own and only week after Gold Coast half marathon, cruised the course in 11:22. Our victory was sealed.
The 35+ team, after fantastic opening leg, managed also to clinch a big victory with 1.5 minutes ahead of second placed Sutherland. Sean O'Neill, Gary Howard and James Dawes all ran strong and were competitive even against Open teams. Well done boys!
Our other teams also performed well. In fact, among top 11 teams in this race, Randwick Botany Harriers had 4 teams. Our Open B team (Bradley Woods, Liam Ridings, Francis Torok and Daniel Keating) came 8th overall while Open C team (Lauren McKillop, Joel Xureb, Chris Wardlay and Patrick Elliot) came 19th with Lauren McKillop, who is currently on scholarship with Butler University in USA, clocking fantstic sub 13:30 leg - we are still waiting for official times. Men 35+ B team (Manu Sivaraj, Peter Spehr, Michael Delaney and Dani Anders) were only 13 seconds behind Open C team and claimed 9th place in their age category.
U18 boys were running in the same race with Opens and 35+ and no doubt our young guns used this opportunity and convincingly won their age group. This is very strong team who took U16 boys Winter Premiership last year and this year are on the way to win it in U18 category. The fastest run among these guys, not surprisingly, went to Zac Rea. He was mixing it up with leading pack on the first leg and clocked low 12 minutes. Other boys also run good keeping an eye on always good Illawong. Mark Kriedmann and Jordan Williams ran strong before handing over to Nathan Derriman who left behind Illawong runner more then 30 seconds.
Full results from State Road Relays are to be published at http://www.nswathletics.org.au/ soon and photos will be available on our website in the next few days.
We thank everyone who participated and we hope you enjoyed this competition!
Big thank you to coaches Ken Green, Sean Williams and Peter Spehr whose input was very valuable.
Enjoy your running,
Randwick Botany Harreirs
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