Athletics Insight: Strong team showings at Whanganui Secondary Schools Cross Country Championships

Whanganui Collegiate School's Hannah Byam leads out at the start of the girls' race. Photo / Sport Whanganui

The gale-force winds and heavy rain of last Wednesday night had eased by Thursday morning and a rainbow over Dudding Lake greeted more than 100 runners about to start the annual Whanganui Secondary Schools Cross Country Championships.

The outstanding and popular venue hosted the event for the third consecutive year. By start time, the gnarly wind had dropped and runners enjoyed conditions which would have been the envy of the rest of New Zealand on the first Thursday of winter.

Lennox Brotherton (Whanganui High School), who in the summer won the Whanganui Schools 3000m title at Cooks Gardens and has had a series of recent impressive runs at parkrun, won the senior boys’ class after a strong challenge from Charlie Anderson (Cullinane College). Brotherton won by 9s, completing the 4km in 13 minutes, with Zak Papworth (Whanganui High School) third and Whanganui Collegiate senior champion Hamish Cranstone fourth.

All the girls started together and ran a lap of the lake with an additional small loop, making the race 2.5km. It went with the form book, with Hannah Byam (Whanganui Collegiate School) adding the Whanganui Schools senior title to her Collegiate title six days earlier. Byam won by 18s, completing the race in 9m 32s. In December, Byam took silver at the New Zealand Secondary Schools in the 2000m steeplechase, with another second place at the North Island Schools Under-17 class in April. Her Collegiate teammate Olivia Gilbertson impressed, taking second, 18s behind Byam at the lake.

Sophie Dunlop (Collegiate) was third across the line to convincingly win the Year 9 girls division, clocking an impressive 10m 16s, 24s ahead of Ryleigh Dorricott (Whanganui High School), who was fourth in the combined race and second in her Year 9 grade, with Ottilie Seligman (Collegiate) the third Year 9 home. Zoe Broadhead (Collegiate), fifth across the line, completed the senior girls’ podium. Millie Boden Cave (Collegiate) was the junior winner, with her teammates Olivia Loader and Sophie Cranstone completing the junior podium.

The Year 9 and junior boys started with the seniors and, like the girls, ran 2.5km, while the senior boys ran two laps of the lake. Sean Frieslaar (Whanganui High School) was first across the line, clocking 8m 21s, 19s ahead of teammate Alex Payne with Bruce McGregor completing an outstanding Whanganui High School junior trifecta. Riley Brasting headed a similar Year 9 trifecta for Cullinane, with Miles Donald and Lincoln Beamsley in second and third respectively.

As I have said in this column on many occasions, there is a strong team element to cross country and it was pleasing to see Sport Whanganui reintroduce a three-to-score team component this year. Collegiate won all three girls’ grades by a wide margin with Whanganui High School second in all three and Whanganui Girls College closely behind in both the senior and junior grades.

As mentioned, Cullinane took a podium trifecta at Year 9 (six points) ahead of Whanganui Collegiate (18 points) and Whanganui High School in third on 21 points. Whanganui High School gained a perfect first, second and third for maximum points to convincingly win both the junior and senior teams competitions. The significant strength of the Collegiate girls was enough to be named the leading school.

At the weekend, nearly 700 athletes from throughout New Zealand will travel to Whangārei to compete at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country Championships.

It will be the first time in its 51 years that the championships have been held in Northland. Unfortunately, Whanganui will have only one representative with promising Collegiate Year 9 athlete Sophie Dunlop making the long journey north. I suspect the distance and lack of experience was a major factor for the low support from Whanganui this year. Additionally, Collegiate have a clash with their major House Music Weekend moved from the Matariki holiday.

Nga Tawa from Marton, which is part of the Manawatū Secondary Schools Association, has six-to-score teams at both senior and Year 9 level, with 18 athletes travelling north. Bill Twiss is to be congratulated on continuing to encourage athletes and embrace the team element of the sport.

Hopefully next year, when the championships are scheduled to be closer to home, we will see a return to solid participation of Whanganui athletes and this should be an achievable target for all our schools.

The reintroduction of team results in Whanganui can be built on with the challenge of more Whanganui schools fielding teams at next year’s New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country Championships. Competing for a team can add value to the running experience.