Athletics: Strong numbers for 43rd Round the Lake Relay in Whanganui

Oliver Jones ran an outstanding third leg for the Whanganui Collegiate School senior boys to set up a convincing win for his team. Photo / Rob van Dort

A couple of milestones have quietly crept by this week. It is 22 years since the first Athletics Insight was published, and this week also marked 45 years since the inaugural Round the Lake Relay.

I wrote the first column following a weekend in Melbourne at the IAAF Track and Field Final (the precursor to today’s Diamond League) on the first weekend of September 2001. Initially, I wrote weekly articles only in the summer with just a few winter articles. However, when my colleague, the late Peter Irvine, a few years later started a similar weekly column throughout the year on rowing, I felt compelled to do the same and, except for a couple of weeks around Christmas, Insight has appeared weekly.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and, remembering how much I had enjoyed running in the Universities Relay around the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park as a student at Loughborough University, I realised on a Sunday walk the potential for a schools relay around Virginia Lake.

From a modest start in 1978 with just a few schools competing, the relay has become a major event in the annual schools running calendar. We missed two years through Covid and three times the race has been held at Whanganui Collegiate School because of weather. Monday’s event was the 43rd edition and the 40th at our wonderful, iconic Rotokawau Virginia Lake.

This year’s event had a return to the numbers attending prior to the pandemic, with 29 schools entered and 132 teams finishing the races. There was a stronger local participation this year and again many teams travelled from throughout the lower North Island, with the whole region well represented on the podium.

Relays are special and bring a strong team element to a sport that many see as an individual sport. There is also a team element at major championships with the team scoring but relays add a more direct team feeling. This team element and the outstanding natural beauty of the lake are major reasons for the enduring popularity of the Spotless Round the Lake Relay.

In four-person relay teams so much depends on the second and third runners as the leading runners often run first or run the anchor leg. Whanganui Collegiate School, which earlier in the winter won the Wellington Colleges Relay, was a convincing winner of the senior boys race on Monday and the strength of the whole team was clearly evident. New Zealand Schools international Daniel Sinclair gave his team a handy lead and, in the process, won the Bates Watchmakers-sponsored watch for the fastest first lap. Sinclair handed over to his cousin James Hercus who, as an 800m specialist, enjoyed the 2km lap more than the 6km full cross-county. Hercus increased the lead to about 200m, handing over to Oliver Jones who ran superbly to further increase the lead over the large field. This left Sinclair’s New Zealand teammate Toby Caro to bring the team home to win by 56 seconds ahead of St Patrick’s Silverstream with Wellington College third.

New Zealand Schools international Sophia Lambreras (Havelock North High School) won the Bates watch as the fastest senior girl in an event won by a very strong Wellington Girls’ College combination. Havelock North High School was second with hosts Whanganui Collegiate School third. Wellington Girls’ College made their presence felt in the senior and junior girls combined race by not only winning the senior race but winning the junior grade with a team that was second across the line only 20 seconds behind their own senior team. They also took third in the juniors with a team that finished eighth across the line, highlighting their strength in the sport having won both senior and under-16s teams at New Zealand Secondary Schools in June. Sacred Heart (Lower Hutt) was the second junior team on Monday.

Perennial winners at the relay, Wellington College also had two teams on the podium in Year 9 boys, taking first and third, the former by the biggest margin of the day (1 minute 23 seconds ) ahead of Palmerston North Boys’ High School in second while in the Year 9 girls Palmerston North Girls’ High School won by a minute from Havelock North High School and New Plymouth Girls’ in third. In the popular intermediate schools division, run in conjunction with the Year 9s, Westmere School prevailed in the girls over Ohakune Primary School and Huntley School, while Huntley won the boys, St George’s was second and Westmere third.

Whanganui Collegiate ran an inter-house competition in conjunction with the event, resulting in 25 per cent of the school running. Selwyn were winners ending a long drought in cross-country.