Wellington Athletes Conquer Cardrona Mountain Run Championships
Wellington Athletes conquered the steep climb of Cardona to claim several of the Athletics New Zealand Championships titles on the weekend.
Toby Gualter [Olympic] fresh from his strong Half Marathon race in a personal best 1:03:30 in Christchurch a fortnight ago, the National 10,000m track champion added the mountain running title with an impressive uphill run over the 11km Cardrona Climb of over 1000m ascent at the Cardrona Alpine Resort. The 24 year old completed the climb in 53:20, to finish over a minute ahead of national steeplechase champion Michael Sutton. Jono Jackson, 2021 mountain running champion was third in 55:01.
Victoria University athlete who has returned to home town of Tauranga Maia Flint (21), claimed the women’s gold medal covering the gruelling climb in 1h 6m 32s ahead of Jessie Speedy who was nearly two minutes back in second with former national junior steeplechase champion Liliana Braun third in 1h 10m 7s. Sarah Douglas, champion in 2022 and 2023 was fourth.
Wellington’s Max Doherty [Olympic] was the first under 20 in the 5km climb beating national under 18 3000m champion James Weber, while Mel Aitken [Scottish] claime dthe Masters Women 5km climb in time of 30.50
For further details see the full Athletics NZ story HERE
