Oakley Headlines The Agency 10000 Metres Festival
Wellington Scottish’s feature 10000 metres festival event managed to go ahead by splitting athletes in to bubbles across their five events after excellent entries despite the miserable weather and strong winds on Saturday. Tauranga athlete Julian Oakley enjoyed more success at Newtown Park, 10 years on from his first major title when winning the nationals schools 1500m title almost 10 years ago. In February this year he was an emphatic winner in the Team Ledger Harcourts Capital Classic 1500 metres before going on to win his national 1500m title in March at Hastings. Due to Covid restrictions the feature 10000 metres race was down graded from its planned NZ Championships status to NZ Challenge event. Oakley led in 2nd placed and former champion Caden Shields by almost a minute after pacer setter and race record holder Ollie Chignell dropped out with about 2km to go. Young Fielding Moa athlete Luke Scott was third and Will Anthony of Olympic club took the NZ Challenge Junior event in a fine 30mins 51secs to be the first Wellington based athlete home. First woman home was Ruby Muir of Scottish but the NZ Challenge title went to Deborah Lynch ahead of sister Susannah Lynch.
