Marathon effort sees Dunedin speed skater lap field
Dunedin’s Mark McCormack put in an impressive performance to lap the field in the men’s marathon race of speedskating’s Southern Endurance series at Levels Raceway on Sunday.
McCormack’s lapped victims included his father, former world masters champion Brett McCormack, who finished second.
McCormack Jr won the 42-kilometre 18 plus lap race in 1 hour, 18 mins 20.23 sec. Derek Tan (Invercargill) was third ahead of Timaru’s Karl Boles de Boer, Darryl Mattingley and a surprise youngster, Brayden Teague, who was sixth, continuing after winning the under 15-boys’ half-marathon.
Emily Thompson (Waimate) won the women’s 42km event in 1:29.46, finishing her first marathon race attempt. She finished second in the New Zealand under15 half-marathon championship last time it was held pre-Covid.
Former four times world representative and master, Shannell Wooding, and Samantha Clarke were second and third respectively.
In the under-15 girls’ halfmarathon Grace Worner (Geraldine) won in 45.44 in a close finish over Kyla Beveridge, with Lauren Crawford (Cave) third, after these three had cleared out from the rest of the field. Georgia Kortright, Ivy Tackney, Claudia
Mattingley and Gemma Thornley were next.
Brayden Teague was a convincing winner in the under-15 boys in a time of 46.08 and Tom Crawford (Cave) just held out Max Tackney in the sprint for second and third with Doyoon Kim and Emile Phaff next.
In the novice and primary 3km races, Oceania Purukamu, Lily Rae and Piper Hogenesch took out the top three girls places and Oakley Mattingley, Marius Joubert and Bentley Na were the top three boys.