Rhydian Cowley and Declan Tingay have been leading the walkers out in their recent Melbourne based training camp, and they continued this on Sunday morning with a superb contest out in front. They walked together, swapping the lead regularly and going through the half way mark in 19:50 berfore kicking the pace down considerably in the second half. Rhydian held on to win with 39:14.6 (second half 19:29), just ahead of Declan with 39:17.4 (second half 19:32). Both walkers recorded PBs.
They were not the only ones to negative split and certainly not the only ones to record PBs.
Overall, 9 of the 13 walkers did PBs – that is a superb stat. Kyle Swan was next to finish with a PB of 40:28.5, breaking Nathan Deakes’ VRWC club U23 record.
With the postponed 2020 World Athletics U20 Championships to be held this coming August in Kenya, 18 year old Will Thompson surged into Australian team contention with his fourth place finishing time of 41:50.6, a huge PB and well under the Australian standard of 43:20.
10.000m track walk women
Victory to Jemima Montag, smashing her Victorian record again with her time of 42:35.3. This propels her to third place on the Australian all-time list, behind only Kerry Saxby Junna (41:30) and Jane Saville (42:15) and actuallly betters the Australian All- Comers track record as well.
Second place to Katie Hayward in 44:22.4
Third place to Rebecca Henderson in 45:20.9
The 17 year old Alanna Peart also showed her World Junior intentions with a PB time of 48:36, just outside the Australian standard of 48:20. And to round things out, we also saw PBs to Tim Fraser (43:09.4), Corey Dickson (43:37.2) and Bec Henderson (45:20.9). What a set of results!
Tim Erickson - AUS
(Photo by Terry Swan - AUS)