Hunters shine at Track Relay Champs
Glenhuntly Athletic Club – Latest News
True team spirit, all-out grit and fabulous camaraderie prevailed among our athletes who participated in the 2022 Victorian State Relay Track Championships on Saturday 26th November at Box Hill Athletic track. Our teams achieved terrific results and everyone who ran on the day did the club proud.
Our members wore black armbands in memory of Phil Hutton, who passed away on 14th November, 2022. Club Legend, Life Member, and the author of the recently published club history, Phil was a club member for over 60 years and one of our most dedicated and admired members. As Phil especially loved the Victorian State Relay Championships, all members were invited to wear the black armband as a sign of respect and club commemoration.
Glenhuntly Athletic Club entered 35 teams, and all of our athletes showed up! With respect to number of teams competing on the day, the next closest club was Doncaster AC with 25 teams, followed by Box Hill AC and Ringwood AC, each with 21 teams.
We came home with 6 Gold medals, 5 Silver medals, and 4 Bronze medals, and some super placings. And, 9 club records were broken.
A special thank you to professional photographer, Emanuela Bryant, for capturing some of our athletes in action during the day. See Photo Gallery below.
Gold medal teams
M16: 4x100m: Xavier Siruelo, Cooper Acklom, Jaikiah Honner, Nicholas Goodman 45.09 (1st)
F18: 4x800m: Thanya Vijayakumar, Serena Bryant, Madison King, Tanasha Santosh 9:56.66 (1st)
F40: 4x400m: Svitlana Korchova, Kara Gilbert, Kellie Macknamara, Evette Cordy 4:53.69 (1st)
F40: 4x1500m: Kim Nanscawen, Rozlyn Walker, Evette Cordy, Anna Munro) 23:06.90 (1st)
F40: 4x100m: Aggie Byers, Evette Cordy, Kara Gilbert, Louise Mclean)59.58 (1st)
M50: 4x1500m: Kevin Mannix, Charlie Sutherland, Andrew Mcevoy, Mickael Soussan 19:11.23 (1st)
Silver medal teams
F14: 4x100m: (Abbie Jeacock, Adele Roche, Brae Bernasconi, Laura Wong) 52.77 (2nd)
F16: 4x100m: (Alice Hollingsworth, Jazmin Firth, Allegra Orso, Julia Zaitseva) 49.86 (2nd)
M16: Medley Relay: (Cooper Acklom, Nicholas Goodman, Jaikiah Honner, Brady Ryan) 3:45.45 (2nd)
M18: Medley Relay: (Lachlan Marriner, William Wong, Matthew Milias, Kevin Zhou) 3:41.43 (2nd)
MOP: Medley Relay: (Tim Rosen, Chris Byron, Seb Hadaway, Jack Forer) 3:32.67 (2nd)
Bronze medal teams
F14: 4x400m: (Emma Wilson, Serena Bryant, Brae Bernasconi, Adele Roche) 4:36.09 (3rd)
F16: Medley Relay: (Julia Zaitseva, Laura Wong, Jazmin Firth, Madison King) 4:10.43 (3rd)
F18: Medley Relay: (Tamzyn Dolgoy, Isabella Hollins, Thanya Vijayakumar, Tanasha Santosh) 4:15.32 (3rd)
M40: 4x100m: (Antony Van Eeten, Alexander Newman, Andrew Crawley, Kulan Ranasinghe) 55.35 (3rd)
Club Records
F16, 4x100 m [final]: Alice Hollingsworth, Jazmin Firth, Allegra Orso, Julia Zaitseva Time: 49.86 (previous record 51.07)
F16, 4x100 m [heat]: Alice Hollingsworth, Jazmin Firth, Allegra Orso, Julia Zaitseva. Time: 50.15 (previous record: 51.07)
M16, 4x100 m: Xavier Siruelo, Cooper Acklom, Jaikiah Honner, Nicholas Goodman. Time: 45.09 (previous record: 45.59)
M18, 4x100 m [final]: Jordan Drescher, Lachlan Marriner, Tyler De Sa, William Wong. Time: 43.10 (previous record: 43.7)
M18, 4x100 m [heat]: Jordan Drescher, Lachlan Marriner, Tyler De Sa, William Wong. Time: 43.32 (previous record: 43.7)
M16, Sprint Medley: Cooper Acklom, Nicholas Goodman, Jaikiah Honner, Brady Ryan. Time: 3:45.45 (previous record: 3:49.60)
F40, 4x100 m: Aggie Byers, Evette Cordy, Kara Gilbert, Louise Mclean. Time: 59.58 (previous record: 61.72)
F40, 4x400 m: Svitlana Korchova, Kara Gilbert, Kellie Macknamara, Evette Cordy. Time: 4:53.69 (previous record: 5:20.84)
M50, 4x1500 m: Kevin Mannix, Charlie Sutherland, Andrew Mcevoy, Mickael Soussan. Time: 19:11.23 (previous record 20:13.83)
Highlights
Open Women
The open women’s timetable for Glenhuntly started with the Medley. The open women managed to field 3 teams in this event, and all finished in the top eight. In the first heat, the A team of Mia, Jenny, Sophie and Claudia finished 3rd in a time of 4:11.67, and the B team of Avestina, Katharine, Nicole and Amy finished in 4th with a time of 4:15.50. In the second heat, the C team of Allegra, Alice, Maddie and Emma finished in 3rd with a time of 4:22.43. The final placings put the A team in 4th overall, B team in 5th, and C team in 7th. This shows the depth of talent amongst the open women's team this year!
Both the A and B women's 4 x 400 m teams progressed straight to the Zatopek final without needing to run heats. The A team will be looking to collect their state 4 x 400 m title for the second year running this December 15th with the B team a hot contender in the final as well.
The final event for the women's team was the 4 x 100 m. The A team of Jenny, Isabella, Nicola and Mia came in 4th in the first heat in a time of 50.00. The B team of Avestina, Katharine, Maddie and Brae came in 6th in their heat in a time of 53.00. This placed the A team 9th overall in the heats and the B team 12th.
Well done to all the open women that competed this year at state relays. We look forward to watching the Zatopek 4x400!
Open Men
Well done to the open men on a great effort at relays. The 4 x 1500 team of Xavier, Jack, Rhydian and Kane performed really well in an extremely stacked field. The team finished 6th in a time of 17:26.91. A special thank you to Kane and Xavier for filling in for the team at the last minute due to injury, and to Rhydian for coming down to support the open team. We all appreciate the chance to run with an olympian!
The Sprint Medley team of Tim, Chris, Seb and Jack pulled out a great run to finish second in a time of 3:32.67 behind Geelong Guild (3:26.20) for the second year in a row. With a stunning show of control, Seb ran a very strong 400 m leg to hand off in second, and Jack did everything he could to get as close as possible to Geelong guild during his final two laps. With a very strong finish, Jack did enough to out pace the first heats winner of OMAC (3:33.56), and secure the silver.
The 4x400 team of Seb, Jaikiah, Chris and Josh managed to secure a spot in the Zatopek final, coming 5th in their heat in a time of 3:37.18, and 7th overall. In what was a moderately weak field this year, the team only had to beat one team to make it to Zatopek. Nevertheless, Seb ran a stellar first leg to keep us in contention, and a last minute emergency substitute of Jaikiah ran an amazing second leg behind some class open runners to keep contact with the field. Chris looked a bit worse for wear, but managed to get the baton around to Josh to finish off the race. Well done to the lads for getting through, time to refocus for Zatopek!
The final event on the open timetable was the 4x100 m. This event was hotly contested this year, and the team of Attila, Josh, Chris and Brendan were not going to take this lightly. The team qualified 3rd in their heat, and 6th overall with a time of 43.43. Going into the final and after a long day of racing, the key focus was on clean changes. The team performed really well, maintaining the heat position of 6th, and dropping the time to 42.97.
Well done to all the open men who competed, we look forward to even stronger performances next year!
Junior Boys
The junior boys entered 5 teams:
- 1 x M16 and 2 x M18 teams in the Sprint Medley (200m, 200m, 400m, 800m)
- 1 x M16 and 1 x M18 in the 4x100m
All of the teams ran extremely well with several club records set - however I would like to call out the M16 4x100m boys final, it was extremely exciting with our last runner catching the Essendon team on the line, beating them by 0.16 seconds. All the best to Nicholas Goodman who pulled up sore.
The M16 boys broke the club record in both of their events and collected 1st place in the 4x100m and second place in the Sprint Medley. Congratulations to all of the M16 boys - Cooper Acklom, Nicholas Goodman, Jaikiah Honner, Brady Ryan, Xavier Siruelo.
Thanks to the Goodman and Honner families for their support with the M16 team.
The M18 4x100m team broke the club record twice, in the heat and then the final. Team A came second in the Sprint Medley and fourth in the 4x100m. Congratulations to all of the M18 boys - Lachlan Marriner, William Wong, Matthew Milias, Kevin Zhou (Sprint Medley Team A), Tyler De Sa, Karar Al-Zubaidy, Nathan Golonka, Terry Tsakiridis (Sprint Medley Team B) and Jordan Drescher, Lachlan Marriner, Tyler De Sa, William Wong (4x100m).
Thanks to Karar for filling in at the last minute and to Matthew, Terry and Karar for running up age groups.
Masters Women W40
As there was no age category for W50, we fielded 2 teams in each of the 3 races in the W40 category: 4 x 1500 M, 4 x 400 M, and 4 x 100 M. Our ages ranged from 42 to 63 years, and our teams were made up of a mix of long-time athletes as well as newcomers to the sport. This was the most number of Women's Masters teams ever entered by the Glenhuntly Athletic Club for the Victorian State Track Relay Championships. We also had more Masters Women’s teams than any other club.
We brought home 3 GOLD medals and some terrific follow-up places. We smashed 2 club records in the process - W40 4 x 400 M and W40 4 x 100 M.
Shout out to Aggie Byers – normally a sprinter, Aggie stepped up at late notice to fill a gap in the 4 x 1500 m team while also fronting up to do the 4 x 400 m and 4 x 100 m relays later in the day.
Special mention goes to Evette Cordy. Evette was the only one among us on all 3 gold medal winning teams on the day, showing her amazing versatility over short and long distances; a former world-class and National Champion 400 m hurdler, Evette showed us that she still has amazing speed!
It was also super to see Anna Munro (a former World Cross Country Championships teams 2 x bronze medallist and National Champion Half Marathoner) returning to track competition and anchor our 4 x 1500 m A team home, along with Kim Nanscawen, Roz Walker and Evette Cordy to beat our closest rival Doncaster AC. Likewise, it was also great to have Nat Esparon extend her XCR running and come join Aggie Byers, Kara Gilbert and Lisa Deramond on the track in our 4 x 1500 m B team, to bring the team home in 4th place.
Our 4 x 400 m teams were dynamite. The A team of Svitlana Korchova, Kara Gilbert, Kellie Macknamara and Evette Cordy won the gold, smashing the club record by nearly 30 seconds in the process. The B team of Aggie Byers, Lisa Deramond, Nat Esparon and Michele Forbes also ran formidably to finish in 7th place.
The pressure was on for the last event on the program, the 4 x 100 m relay, given we had already clinched 2 of the 3 gold medals that on the table for the W40 at this competition. After checking in with each other and confirming our baton handover tactics, we felt prepped and ready to go. And, we hit the jackpot! Our A team clinched our third gold medal for the day, breaking 60 seconds and the club record. Lou McLean looked fabulous as she anchored the team down the home straight to victory. The B team showed their strength, defeating the other B team in the race, Doncaster AC, to come home in 6th place.
All in all, we had loads of fun, and can't wait to come back stronger and faster next year. Go team!
Masters Men
The male Masters entered three teams this year, two in the M40 4x100 and 4x400 and one in the M50 4x1500m. This was unusual as we typically enter more 50 plus teams, however we have had a lot of injuries and absences this year.
The M50 4 x 1500 m team broke the club record and also comfortably won, nearly beating the winning M40 team from Box Hill.
The M40 4 x 400 m team were disqualified for violating rule TR 24.20 (see below). There were some other visible violations of this rule in other events and this is something for GHY to focus on in the future.
The M40 4x100m team came third.
Thanks to Andrew McEvoy for stepping in to the 4 x 400m team at the last minute following an injury.
Well done to all Male Masters - Antony Van Eeten, Alexander Newman, Andrew McEvoy, Kulan Ranasinghe, Kevin Mannix, Charlie Sutherland, Mickael Soussan & Andrew Crawley.
Rule TR 24.20
24.20 In the Medley Relay, the athletes running the final leg and in the 4 × 400m race, the athletes running the third and fourth legs (or under Rule 24.15.2 of the Technical Rules, the second leg) shall, under the direction of a designated official, place themselves in their waiting position in the same order (inside to out) as the order of their respective team members as they enter the last bend. Once the incoming athletes have passed this point, the waiting athletes shall maintain their order, and shall not exchange positions at the beginning of the takeover zone. If an athlete does not follow this Rule, their team shall be disqualified.
Rule TR 24.21
24.21 In any race, when lanes are not being used, including when applicable, in 4 × 200m, the Medley Relay and 4 × 400m, waiting athletes can take an inner position on the track as incoming team members approach, provided they do not jostle or obstruct another athlete so as to impede their progress. In 4 × 200m, the Medley Relay and 4 × 400m, waiting athletes shall maintain the order in accordance with Rule 24.20 of the Technical Rules. If an athlete does not follow this Rule, their team shall be disqualified.
Glenhuntly Athletic Club Results – as posted on the Athletics Victoria Results Hub
FOP Medley Relay: (Avestina Zhong, Katharine Wright, Nicola Davis, Amy Mckinley) 4:15.50 (5th); (Allegra Orso, Alice Hollingsworth, Madeleine Parris, Emma Wadley) 4:22.43 (7th); (Mia Spencer, Jennifer King, Sophia Hanlon, Claudia Carter) 4:11.67 (4th); 4x100m: (Jennifer King, Isabella Hollins, Nicola Davis, Mia Spencer) 50.00 (P); (Avestina Zhong, Katharine Wright, Madeleine Parris, Brae Bernasconi) 53.00 (P); F18 Medley Relay: (Tamzyn Dolgoy, Isabella Hollins, Thanya Vijayakumar, Tanasha Santosh) 4:15.32 (3rd); 4x400m: (Isabella Hollins, Thanya Vijayakumar, Tamzyn Dolgoy, Tanasha Santosh) 4:15.37 (4th); 4x800m: (Thanya Vijayakumar, Serena Bryant, Madison King, Tanasha Santosh) 9:56.66 (1st); F16 Medley Relay: (Allegra Orso, Alice Hollingsworth, Isabel Zhang, Jacinta Crowley) 4:25.82 (7th); (Abbie Jeacock, Brae Bernasconi, Adele Roche, Molly Phillips) 4:28.64 (10th); (Julia Zaitseva, Laura Wong, Jazmin Firth, Madison King) 4:10.43 (3rd); 4x100m: 49.86 (2nd); (Alice Hollingsworth, Isabel Zhang, Allegra Orso, Julia Zaitseva) 50.15 (P); 4x400m: (Julia Zaitseva, Madison King, Isabel Zhang, Jazmin Firth) 4:26.56 (4th); (Julia Zaitseva, Madison King, Isabel Zhang, Jazmin Firth) 4:35.65 (P); F14 4x100m: (Abbie Jeacock, Adele Roche, Brae Bernasconi, Laura Wong) 52.77 (2nd); 4x400m: (Emma Wilson, Serena Bryant, Brae Bernasconi, Adele Roche) 4:36.09 (3rd); F40 4x100m: (Michele Forbes, Kellie Macknamara, Lisa Deramond, Svitlana Korchova) 70.94 (6th); (Aggie Byers, Evette Cordy, Kara Gilbert, Louise Mclean) 59.58 (1st); 4x400m: (Aggie Byers, Lisa Deramond, Nat Esparon, Michele Forbes) 6:15.45 (7th); (Svitlana Korchova, Kara Gilbert, Kellie Macknamara, Evette Cordy) 4:53.69 (1st); 4x1500m: (Kara Gilbert, Lisa Deramond, Aggie Byers, Nat Esparon) 27:02.24 (4th); (Kim Nanscawen, Rozlyn Walker, Evette Cordy, Anna Munro) 23:06.90 (1st); MOP Medley Relay: (Tim Rosen, Chris Byron, Seb Hadaway, Jack Forer) 3:32.67 (2nd); 4x100m: (Attila Baranyay, Josh Steyn-Ross, Chris Byron, Brendan Ashcroft) 42.97 (6th); (Attila Baranyay, Josh Steyn-Ross, Chris Byron, Brendan Ashcroft) 43.43 (P); 4x400m: (Seb Hadaway, Jaikiah Honner, Chris Byron, Josh Steyn-Ross) 3:37.18 (P); 4x1500m: (Xavier Wallace, Jack Forer, Rhydian Cowley, Kane Rossiter) 17:26.91 (6th); M18 Medley Relay: (Lachlan Marriner, William Wong, Matthew Milias, Kevin Zhou) 3:41.43 (2nd); (Tyler De Sa, Karar Al-Zubaidy, Nathan Golonka, Terry Tsakiridis) 4:05.68 (9th); 4x100m: (Jordan Drescher, Lachlan Marriner, Tyler De Sa, William Wong) 43.10 (4th); (Jordan Drescher, Lachlan Marriner, Tyler De Sa, William Wong) 43.32 (P); M16 Medley Relay: (Cooper Acklom, Nicholas Goodman, Jaikiah Honner, Brady Ryan) 3:45.45 (2nd); 4x100m: (Xavier Siruelo, Cooper Acklom, Jaikiah Honner, Nicholas Goodman) 45.09 (1st); M40 4x100m: (Antony Van Eeten, Alexander Newman, Andrew Crawley, Kulan Ranasinghe) 55.35 (3rd); 4x400m: (Antony Van Eeten, Alexander Newman, Andrew Mcevoy, Kulan Ranasinghe) DQ; M50
4x1500m: (Kevin Mannix, Charlie Sutherland, Andrew Mcevoy, Mickael Soussan) 19:11.23 (1st)
- Photo Gallery – by Emanuel Bryant -
- Photo Gallery – Photos from AV Facebook by Joanna Margiolis -
- Photo Gallery – personal pics by our members-
Contributors: Team Managers - Jenny King (Open Women), Chris Byron (Open Men), Carl Hollins & Matt Firth (Underage W), Michael Halloran (Underage Men), Kara Gilbert (Masters Women), Andrew Crawley (Masters Men)
Curated by: Kara Gilbert
Date published: 2nd December, 2022
This article has been published in good faith, drawing on available data. Please contact kara@kmgcommunications.com.au if you notice any errors or omissions in the above results or would like to see additional content included.