GREAT OCEAN ROAD RUNNING FESTIVAL
ALMOST 9000 runners made the weekend’s Great Ocean Road Running Festival the largest event of its type in Australia for more than a year.
Elite athletes and have-a-go heroes flooded the scenic tourist route for a variety of events.
The feature race was the 44km marathon on Sunday, with Aleara Wallace finally breaking through for her first victory in the women’s event in a time of 3:09:16. South Australian John Csongei was the men’s winner, completing the run from Lorne to Apollo Bay in 2:48:20.
For Wallace, the win was sweet redemption after finishing second in 2017.
She was two minutes quicker than Danni Rogan (2nd) and Judith Arndt (3rd), who joined her on the podium, while Jason Daye was men’s runner-up with John Howley third.
The success of the festival was also a relief for organisers, who reluctantly had to cancel the popular event last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“After a challenging 2020, we are thrilled to have delivered a successful event for the Great Ocean Road community,” festival director Brad King said.
Saturday’s feature race, the 14km Paradise Run featured Aussie running legend and Great Ocean Road Running Festival ambassador Steve Moneghetti. He finished seventh (45:58) in the men’s race, which was won in a record time (40:29.250) by Andre Waring, with Calli Thackery (46:20.727) winning the women’s race.
They both backed up to run the half marathon on Sunday, both finishing second.
The field of runners across the weekend was 13 shy of 9000, with thousands more roadside supporting them.