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Richards Win the Day.
Cold and cloudy
conditions greeted the Stawell Amateur Athletic
Club cross country runners who took up the 16km
challenge provided by the Charlie Jones Handicap,
held in the bushland off Commercial Road, near
Stawell Airport.
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| Richard
Gannon |
| Click
to enlarge |
Damp conditions
and large puddles made some sections of the course
tricky for the
20 seniors runners
who lined up for the second longest race of the
season. Held as a sealed handicap, with all runners
starting together and the handicaps applied after
the race, it kept both spectators and runners
guessing as to who would be the eventual winner.
Fastest
runner in the field Col Barnett got off to his
usual flying start, closely followed by
Jon Dugdale and Garry Rice. However, by the
half way mark, race sponsor Charlie Jones had worked
his way into second place behind Barnett. Peter
Steggall was also running well and looked like
he may be in contention for a place, while
Alexa
Duke and Richard Gannon were battling it out
midfield, with Sharon Howden not far behind.
Competitors
then headed into a more testing hilly section
which sorted out the stronger runners.
Barnett
powered home to take line honours, and post
the fastest race time of 57min 43sec. Charlie
Jones
came in second with Jon Dugdale third across
the line. Gannon showed his strength by pulling
away
from Duke, who dropped back behind Howden
over the closing stages.
After handicaps
were applied, new club member Richard Gannon claimed
the race win by a narrow
margin from
Sharon Howden,
with Peter Steggall taking third place.
Duke held out Susie Ellis to finish fourth. Ellis
ran well
to post the fastest female time of 65min
3sec.
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| Richard Dugdale |
| Click to enlarge |
The juniors
set off on a 4km course but one of the course markers
had been tampered
with
by
some of the lower life forms occasionally
heard navigating
the bush tracks, and the juniors did
not complete the set course, so no race was
recorded.
Steve
Baird went to the rescue in his ute,
and provided great entertainment on the return
journey by
navigating various large puddles etc.
Many of the juniors
could be heard talking excitedly of
nothing else for some time afterwards.
A small
field of sub-juniors raced over a 2km out and
back course, with Elly
Atherton leading
for
much of the way, but a fast finishing
Richard Dugdale reeled her in with
300 meters to
go, closely followed
by Stacey Faravoni.
Dugdale crossed
the line
first with Faravoni second and
Atherton third. Dugdale also posted the fastest
sub-junior time of 8min 17sec, with Stacey Faravoni
recording the fastest girls time
of 8min 48sec.
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