Sunday was the Teams relay for the World Games. The terrain was a mix of urban area and parklands, with a very small area of forest. The organisers recommended running shorts and shoes for competitors.

The World Games relay is a four-person (two men & two women) relay. Qualification is highly competitive with only 13 teams offered a starting place: Australia qualified 13th, and went into the day aiming to improve that position following some solid runs in the Saturday’s middle distance race.

Australia’s relay team was led out by Troy de Haas, with the pace on from the very start. Troy made a couple of little errors but held on to the back of the pack to come in 22 seconds behind the leaders and handed the reins over to Allison Jones.

Allison had a battle with the Juliette Soulard from the French team, Allison opened up a gap on Juliette as the teams came through the stadium at the half way point of the course, in the second half, the French girl finally caught up to Allison as they took different route choices and they entered the stadium locked together.

Grant Bluett went out on the course with Thierry Gueorgiou, the new World Games Champion. With a couple of wider splits, Grant never got to the front and had to contend with a time 5 seconds slower than Thierry.

Danielle Winslow was the last runner for the Aussie team, she started out in 12th spot and the question was, could she hold off the Finnish team. It was not going to happen as the Finnish girl ran the 3rd fastest time of the day and went past Danielle during the 1st loop, Australia then had to settle for 13th place.

Jim Russell