University Relays and Athletics Wellington Mixed Relay Championships
On a day with excellent weather over 450 athletes turned out for the annual event staged at Queen Elizabeth Park in Paekakariki to kick off the Winter Series after the postponement of the Shaw Baton Relay last week to now go ahead on June 21.
The day started with a Walk and the younger division races. In the Under 14 Children’s Championship Relay over 4 laps of 2.0km per lap Trentham U14 Blue took the title with a team of Sanjith Ragunath, Hazel Roos, Caleb Wallace and Kiana Wealleans ahead of from Hutt Valley Harriers and Olympic Tahi.
Lucia Harfitt of Kapiti Running & Tri club took the fastest lap of the day over 2.0km with 6.47 for under 14’s non championship relay team asa member of team of Kapiti Running & Tri Club Under 14 girls team.
Trentham club mates of Tay Hines and Levi McKevitt were first in girls and boys Under 10 races respectively over 1.2km , while Heath Archer of Titahi Bay took the Under 14 Boys individual race over 2km
For the Wellington Mixed Relay Championships there were the Open and Junior [Under 20] grade events and two age division relays which were divided into the ‘170’ grade where athlete ages had to aggregate less than ‘170’ and ‘220’. In the Championships events and the Victoria University Open relay event athletes all ran a 3.9km leg for their teams of four athletes across the sand dune based farmland.
The overall line honours for the 4 x 3.9km event went to the Mad Max’s Olympic Under 20 team of Alex McBeth [11.50], Ava Sutherland [13.14], Max Doherty [11.38] and Olivia Clay-McDowell [13.58], 20 seconds ahead of Scottish Kakapo team in the Vic Uni relay division, and WHAC MM35 took 3rd team in also in the Vic Uni section.
The Open Championships were taken out by WHAC Mx team crossing as 7th team overall in 54.24. The ‘170’ division went to WHAC Mx 170 in a tiem of 58.41 ahead of Scottish Kaka and Olympic Koaro. For the ‘220’ division honours went to Scottish Karearea [1.06.13], from Olympic Kanae and Scottish Kiwi.
Fastest laps on the day for Men went to Max Doherty [Olympic] in 11.38 by a narrow margin of 1 second ahead of Lorcan Rabbitte of host Club Vic Uni and Lennox Crowe [Scottish] clocking 11.46. For the Women, Ava Sutherland [Olympic] took the honours with a run of 13.14 ahead of Lucy Mabin [WHAC]13.34 and Kumiko Otani [WHAC]13.45.
For full results click HERE
