Trentham United Under 20 Men’s team open season with impressive win over Seniors at Shaw Baton.
The Athletics Wellington winter season opened with the longstanding Shaw Baton Relays hosted by Olympic Harriers. This event has seen many of New Zealand’s finest run the Battle Hill farm course and take the fastest laps honours. These include NZ reps like John Henwood, Phil Star, Hamish Carson, Ann Hare, Melissa Moon, the great Jono Wyatt and Nick Willis. The event dates back over 100 years and is still an integral Interclub event acting as major season opener for the Wellington winter running season.
The Trentham United Under 20 men’s team tutored by Trentham youth coach Darryl Robinson, had the fastest time overall featuring Daniel du Toit (also Oceania race walking Champ) with 4th fastest lap time, Max Poland, Josh Jordan and Hassan McCall. The event has changed over years with team now running for per team but the question remains, were they the first youth team to beat the elites/senior teams? Scottish Senior men won the senior division even though denied the line honours by the younger Trentham team, and Trentham showed they have future with fastest men’s time going to their senior athlete Thomas Strawbridge with a time of 6mins 15 secs
WHAC with their Senior women’s team led by Sarah Drought who took the fastest women’s lap of 7:12, Esther George 7:28, Natasha Rae 8:03 and Andrea Peat 7:36 won the women’s relay in 30:19. Olympic were second in 31:52 and Scottish third in 35:03.
There was some talent in the youth ranks continuing with traditions of many Hutt Valley runners of past with a couple of standout performances like Jacob Williams (U 12s Hutt Valley Harriers) and Maddy Voss (U14 Trentham) who took out the fastest time in her grade and was the 5th fastest female over all.
Full results are available HERE
