Liam Back wins men’s under-18 title in NZ Cross Country Champs

Despite two falls on the run home, Athletics Manawatu¯ Wanganui runner Liam Back has taken out the New Zealand Cross County Championships men’s under-18 title.

Back ran the six-kilometre course in Upper Hutt in 19 minutes and 18 seconds, confirming he is the top under-18 middle-distance runner.

Kara Macdermid ran well to take silver in the women’s senior 10km event, in 36m 33s.

Bronze medals went to Sarah Lambert in the women’s under-20 race, Dale Mcmillan in the W50 race, Jo Speary in the W60 grade, Reuben Duker in the men’s under14 and Hayley Cornwall in the women under-14 race.

Local athletes in the senior men’s race all finished close together, with David Lovelock placing 29th, Joshua Dunstanbrown 31st and Mark Searle 34th.

In the masters section, Di Matthews was fourth in the W50 race, AJ Cornwall sixth in the M45 race, with Andrew Davenport seventh and Paul Wasley eighth in the M50 race. Manawatu¯ Wanganui centre chairman Rob Dabb completed the masters representation with his 11th place in the M55 grade

In the men under-18 race, Back was followed home by George Lambert, in seventh place, and Andre Le Pine-day, 22nd.

In the women’s under-18 race, Stephanie Walker was 13th, ahead of Sarah Matthews, 22nd, and Marseille Bowie, 23rd.

Samuel Stichbury was sixth in the under-16 boys’ 4km race, one spot ahead of Nelson Doolan. Cameron Walker was 21st. Lucy Monckton was 18th in the girls’ race and Pascale Bowie 21st.

Lucy Mclean finished in that dreaded fourth place in the girls’ under-14 3km race, just behind Hayley Cornwall. Poppy Rae was 10th. In the boys’ race, Charlie Hook was 20th.

Tayler Trow took out eighth place in the girls’ under-12 2km race and Will Sablerolle-stone was 18th in the boys’ event.

The Palmerston North Athletic and Harrier Club always follows ex-members and my good friend Jim Jones collected the bronze medal in the M50 race and was part of the Wellington team that took the gold medal in the masters 50-64 teams’ completion.

Last week I said I was hoping for some good results for Manawatu Wanganui in the teams’ competition, but unfortunately withdrawals meant the centre didn’t have sufficient entrants to qualify for this event, which required teams to have four finishers to count. It must be of concern to the national body that in many of the grades few centres were able to meet this requirement. ■ It was sad to learn that Donna Lewer lost her battle with cancer earlier in the week. She was a special woman and the support she gave to Jack certainly has enabled him to perform at the highest level in our sport. Our thoughts have been with the family.

■ Although Athletics NZ are still to finalise the calendar for the coming season, it looks like there will be a change for one of the Classic Events. Athletics Australia have released their schedule, which includes the dates for three IAAF permit meetings in New Zealand. These are the Porritt Classic in Hamilton on February 15, The Sir Graham Douglas Meeting in Auckland on February 23, and the big change, with the Capital Classic in Wellington on February 29.

■ Some provisional dates I have are that the Central Teams’ competition will start with a meeting in Inglewood on November 2. Whanganui will host the second meeting on November 9, with the final round in Masterton on November 23 leading into the New Zealand Secondary School Championships in Wellington from December 6-8. The Potts Classic in Hastings is listed for January 25 and the Athletic NZ championships in Christchurch from March 6-8. Whanganui will likely hold the Sir Peter Snell Meeting on March 14.

■ The third round of the winter track and field series starts at 1pm tomorrow at the Manawatu¯ Community Athletics Track.