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| Jack Hunter |
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| Santa again |
The highlight for the day would be the continuation of Michelle Allison’s age-grade record-breaking campaign. And I shall quote Michael Wray “At the Scottish Night of Miles in Wellington, Michelle Allison has just set a new NZ Q65 Mile record. Awaiting official results but it will be around 6.47”.
Which is just about right as Michelle’s time was officially recorded as 6.46.87.
So place your bets on which record Michelle will be
targeting next except it probably won’t to the pole vault.
The other highlights which can’t be ignored were
the unscripted sprint finishes in the Men’s B race and the Men’s A race. Both
were crowd-pleasers.
In the Men’s B race, it was all on between Dan Clendon and Rowan Hooper in the sprint to the line.
I’m sure neither wanted to be in the position to have to battle it out for line honours, especially Mr Hooper who should have been making sure he did nothing to sabotage his recovery efforts for an achilles injury.
But in the heat of the moment and all that, the competitiveness kicks in. For the record, Dan hit the line in 4.46.92 with Rowan a hair’s breadth back in 4.47.22.
Then came the nail-biting clash in the Men’s A race between Malcolm Hodge and rising talent, 15yo Wairarapa College student Jack Hunter.
Malcolm took control of the race from the start and may have been surprised by the massive effort put in by Jack to catch up with him, especially in the strength-sapping windy conditions.
But Jack has current form and experience
over the distance winning the 2020 Junior Boys 1500m track champ crown at
Tauranga last weekend so has current form.
So the final 100m was a stride-by-stride battle up
the home straight with Jack just edging out Malcolm for the win to produce
respective times of 4.26.83 and 4.26.96, in other words, a dead heat, more or
less.
In the same race, and not to be outdone, Harry McLean and Faiyeung Szteo had their own sprint war and it was a close run thing as the respective finish times of 4.52.30 and 4.52.35 show.
You can’t plan
these virtual dead heats.
The big disappointment for the A race was that Saravee Sos, a sprinter by trade (he had already raced over, 100m, 200m and 400m earlier in the day) was only going to pace and not do 4 laps.
Now that would have been something to see.
The other races including the kid’s races and the lolly scramble all went well.
In the All-Comers-Mile Jack Hammond had the
audacity to challenge Santa for the win, but despite his long journey from a cold place, Santa was having none of it.
Men's A Race Photos
Santa Limbering Up Photo Shoot and All-Comers Mile Photos
Women's B Race Photos
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