Quarry course will challenge best runners

MOVIN' ON UP: Caitlyn Alabaster (blue) will gain valuable experience racing in the Under-15 event at the New Zealand Cross Country Championships on the Halswell Quarry course in Christchurch on Saturday.PHOTO/SUPPLIED

THE New Zealand Cross Country Championships return for the second successive year to the deceptively demanding Halswell Quarry course in Christchurch this Saturday.

Nearly 400 of New Zealand's leading runners through all grades face the starter.

While numbers are not high in comparison to the New Zealand Schools Championships held in Dunedin in June there is real quality in the smaller fields. Five Wanganui athletes are among the starters.

Christian Conder, who starts in the Youth Men's (under 18), is probably the best hope of success from the group. Conder starts in one of the largest fields of the day with 60 in his race and will have to be at his best if he is to return with silverware. In his field are three runners who finished ahead of him at New Zealand Schools where Conder had finished 7th, earning him a place in the NZ Schools Team to Australia at the end of the month. While second placed Dan Hoy is not running in Christchurch and two others from Dunedin are in the Junior Men's grade, spice is added to the race by the winner of the NZSS Junior Boys grade Isaiah Priddey (Waikato) and the second placed Kalani Sheridan (Tasman) competing and there are three other runners who finished within 5 seconds of Conder in Dunedin. As in all great sporting events athletes have to be at their best when it matters and Conder has proved when he won the North Island Youth grade at the start of the month he has this ability to perform under pressure.

Jane Lennox, who like Conder finished 7th in Dunedin and is also part of the New Zealand Schools Team to Australia, faces a particularly demanding test at the Quarry. In Dunedin she had moved up from juniors to bolster the strong Collegiate Senior girls' team and was rewarded with a heady performance over the hilly course. In the field she is joined by four who finished ahead of her in Dunedin and three of the top 4 fellow juniors from the junior race in Dunedin. Lennox has had a build-up interrupted by a week of illness.

Christian Conder has good family support in Christchurch. His younger brother Thomas starts in the same Youth Championship while his mother Paula lines up in the 30-strong Masters women's field. She is one of six in her age band.

The other Wanganui runner is Caitlyn Alabaster in the Under 15 event. Alabaster had finished 11th in the Year 9 grade and was the leading Collegiate runner in the winning Team in Dunedin.

Alabaster is a promising young athlete and will gain invaluable experience at the Halswell Quarry on Saturday.

There will be some Wanganui interest in the performance of Olympian Lucy van Dalen who will be running for Auckland where she now resides. Van Dalen has had an injury and a sabbatical break from the sport and her win in the Auckland Cross Country was her first major competitive race since the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Saturday will provide another important step on her return to top-flight athletics.

As indicated at the start of the article fields are not as large in the younger grades as at New Zealand Schools where the strong team element certainly swells numbers. It is still important that the sport finds a way of attracting some of these large numbers at school level to also run for centres and clubs at the Athletics New Zealand Championships.

In Dunedin there were 293 girls and 505 boy finishers through the three grades. In Christchurch there are 87 and 118 starters in the respective girls and boys grades. It is interesting to note that the largest field in Christchurch is the Masters Men's with 83, illustrating again that sport is not just for the young. The challenge is to swell the numbers in other grades and remove the worry many runners have about competing in a championship.