ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Down the Track - Episode 10
A big weekend of action took place at Lakeside Stadium for week 1 of the Coles Victorian Open and Junior Track and Field Championships.
In the Open field events, Kim Mulhall claimed her 12th Victorian Discus title and in an impressive display produced her best ever Championship winning throw. Nick Dyson had a strong back end to his Discus competition to leapfrog the opposition and claim his first Open Championship win.
Ellen Pettitt and Alwyn Jones were the standouts in the Triple Jump competition, with Ellen beatuing perhaps the strongest domestic field yet assembled in Australia to take home title number three in this discipline. For Alwyn it was the 8th time he’d won the Victorian Championship, still one win shy of his nine Australian Championship wins.
In the Javelin Breanna Large claimed her 2nd title and edged closer to her target distance of 45 metres, while Calum Dean has worked his way through a shoulder injury to also take Javelin title no. 2. While in the Pole Vault our junior women dominated with Cassidy Bradshaw winning the Open title with a best of 3.90 and Lachlan Burns taking out the men’s event with a clearance of 5.00m, sharing the same height as Joel Pocklington and David Thomson.
Meanwhile out on the track there were also some standout performances. Participation in the para events continues to rise and Wheelie Sam Rizzo looked impressive as he set good times in the 100m, 400m and 1500m. Erica Gosney also had a good competition with impressive runs in th 400m and 1500m, while Dayna Crees in the field was also performing well.
In the Open Men’s 100m, Michael Romanin tasted back to back victories ahead of Jake Penny and in a classic final Brittany Burkitt took out the women’s sprint crown in a time 11.58, just 4/100ths shy of the Championship record and the fastest winning time since Laure Hewitt in 1997. Not far behind was Nana-Adoma Owusu-Afriyie who secured a second World Uni Games qualifier to add to her 200m performance.
The 400, events were definitely highlights. In a race of attrition, Sophia Fighera held on to win from Alexia Loizou and the fast starting Kendra Hubbard with only half a second separating the three. Luke Stevens signalled his return to the top ranks with an emotional win in the men’s one lapper, edging out Michael Beltrame who ran a PB to take silver.
A controlled performance over 1500m gave Box Hill’s Georgia Hansen her first Open Championship and Isaac Hockey stamped himself as the middle distance king of Victoria adding the metric mile championship to his classic mile title from less than two weeks before.
Ben Khongbut now needs just one more title to joined hurdling legend Kyle Vanderkuyp on eight championship wins in the sprint hurdles. An impressive display saw Khongbut finish clear of reigning champion David Brock, the multi eventer. And World Juniors representative Danielle Shaw won the 100m hurdles with Rachel Limburg in second.
Sean also reviews the best action from the Junior events, together with a wrap of whats been happening on the Indoor scene including a new world record!
Some Victorians were also in action at the wet and windy Tokyo Marathon over the weekend, plus we also preview the Nagoya and Lake Biwa Marathons taking place this weekend in Japan.
Another big week in athletics….
