Sterling effort in cross-country event

ATHLETICS:It was a case of the three wise men pooling their efforts to take the 75-year-old Bramwell Trophy for Wanganui teams cross-country on Saturday.
Wanganui Harrier Club president Peter Green, handicap specialist Bruce Baldwin and the gnarly veteran Ken Thomas produced a sterling performance in cold wintry conditions on a slippery course at Alan and Bobbie Cave's property in Seafield Road. Persistent rain through out the day made conditions greasy on top and it was only the sandy base of the course that stopped it deteriorating further. Weather conditions meant only the hardiest souls appeared but there was still a good turnout of 40 for this important date in the club calendar. Seven three-person teams contested the Bramwell Trophy and it was Green, Baldwin and Thomas who prevailed with a combined time two minutes ahead of Neil Mayo, Mark Cressingham and Dave Adams, who in turn were three minutes up on Henry Bishop, Bill Armstrong and Peter Monrad.
The Bramwell Angel is handed to the fastest on the day and once again Aaron White was dominant with a 35min 2sec effort for the 9km test.
Neil Mayo was second fastest in 36min flat while an interesting newcomer Glen Daly looked impressive in recording third fastest time of 37min 18sec.
The women's race for the Sexton Cup was comfortably won by Viv Eyers and Gai Mari Smart ahead of Emma Hamby and Margaret McBeth. Hamby was backing up from the New Zealand secondary schools cross-country champs from the previous week and had the consolation of picking up the Stephenson Trophy for fastest time over 6km, recording 29min 46sec.
The Watson Trophy for the under-16 teams' event was a lot closer with Sam Nugent and Natalia Orlowski having to work hard to hold off Jacob Dugdale and Briar Stevenson, with only 1min 40sec separating them on combined time.
Sarah Winter and Samantha Monrad were just over a minute down in third. Dugdale produced another promising effort in recording fastest time of 13min 7sec for the 3km loop ahead of Sam Nugent in 13min 45sec.
Weather conditions were not conducive to walking so those present competing in a scratch race with Barry Ross first home in the men's event and Lynne Monrad prevailing in the women's section.
In other news Mark Cornaga took time out from coaching his Wanganui High School squad to run the Harbour Capital Marathon in Wellington on Sunday.
Running his first marathon, Cornaga produced an outstanding result in arctic conditions recording 2hours 57min for the 42.2km to be eighth overall in a 220-plus field.
This would be the first sub 3-hour run from a Wanganui-based athlete for a few years.