At the beginning the women’s race was very exciting with Hanny Allston starting off well and with a chance to beat yesterday’s winner of the middle distance race, Anna Perrson, but a few errors after the second spectator and drinks control saw her slip behind. The later-starting runners from Norway, Mari Fasting and Elise Egseth, blitzed the rest of the field by two minutes. When all were finished Hanny placed in a very creditable 11th position.

Dave Meyer starting earlier in the day had a steady run, finishing in 32nd position. He says he did not rush and took a bit more time to ensure he kept in contact with the map and did not make any big errors. Next to finish for the Aussies was Simon Uppill in 58th position, still in the top third of the field and encouraging for Australia for the future. Louis Elson(105), Ryan Smyth(115), and Conrad Elson(119) found the going tough but gallantly finished the course with 23 competitors failing to finish or mis-punching in the men’s race.

In the women’s race Erin Post, who had the earliest start of the day, finished in 50th position and was happy to finish and improve on her result from yesterday. Ainsley Cavanagh was also pleased with her performance in 68th position and was followed by Vanessa Round in 74th spot and looked very tired at the end of her race. Jasmine Neve found the going tough as she was still nursing a bruised knee from the previous race but gallantly ran her race finishing in 76th position and then Zebedy Hallett in 79th spot who had a few navigational errors at one point doing a 180 error on a track.
The area was very tough going for all and only the winner in the mens race achieving the estimated winning time of 73 minutes and the winners in the women’s race being 8 minutes more than the estimated winning time of 55 minutes.
An exellent result for Australia getting a podium finish by Julian Dent in 4th position and Hanny Allston finishing in 11th spot in the under such tough conditions.

Hilary Wood

Abbreviated Results