April 19, 2016
PRESENTATION NIGHT, MAY 13
The Box Hill Athletic Club presentation night will be held at the clubrooms on Friday, May 13 from 7:30pm. The evening will begin with a brief annual general meeting, followed by presentations, a guest speaker and supper. This is great opportunity to celebrate the achievements of our athletes over the past 12 months and also a chance for newer members to get to know the club. All members, parents and friends are invited to come.
MOVIE NIGHT, MAY 29
Please save the date. Sunday evening 29 May, the Club will be holding a fund raising movie night for the Box Hill athletes selected for the World Junior Championships this year. Nana Owusu-Afriyie, Kathryn Brooks, Georgia Hansen and Sarah Billings will be representing Australia in Poland in July, but must meet some of the costs themselves. Please support this fund raising effort.
Balwyn Cinema, movie ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anvGUW-vsLE
More details to follow.
WANDIN PARK CROSS COUNTRY, MAY 7
Round 2 of the XCR’16 season will be held at a new venue, the scenic (and hilly) Wandin Park. This park is more often used as an equestrian centre and is located off Victoria Rd, Wandin North, 10 minutes east of Lilydale.
There will be 2km, 3km and 4km events for the junior age groups, a 6kn race for the open women and 8km event for the men.
BOX HILL OFF TO A GREAT START AT JELLS PARK
Box Hill started the XCR’16 cross country and road racing season in fine form, with wins in three divisions, including the men’s premier division. We also picked up silver medals in three other divisions.
It was great to see fifteen Box Hill teams (made up of 55 athletes) line up for this first event of the winter season.
A brilliant last leg from Will Potter saw our men’s premier division take out an exciting win. Great runs from Steve Dinneen, James O’Connell, Peter Green, Nick Baggott and Dion Finocchiaro, saw Box Hill in a three way tie for the lead when Will took off on the final leg of the relay. He took the lead immediately and held it all the way to the finish.
See Ian Sloane’s full report below.
Our Under 20 men’s team won an equally exciting race, with Scott McKenzie coming from 37 seconds behind on the last leg to take the lead in the final stages and win by just 2 seconds.
The Under 14 boys team of Murray Lovass, Connor Ogilvie and Mac Anderson had a huge win, with the 2nd team five minutes behind.
Box Hill teams finished 2nd in the women’s Under 16, men’s Over 40 and Men’s Over 50 divisions.
Our women’s premier division team, was in fourth position, only a few seconds outside of the top three, after the first three runners, but with a number of our women unavailable this week and despite the best efforts of our final two runners, the team dropped back to eighth.
A special congratulations and welcome to our new members, Conor Yung, Jackson Deane, Brent Harris, Robert Ashbridge and Steve Ross who competed for the Club for the first time.
Thanks to all those who helped with officiating and time keeping, Grant O’Donnell, Peter Lovass, John Rives, Megan Sloane, Ian Sloane, Jo Hajjar, Andrew Hester, Kirsty Ritchie, Francis Pamminger, Simone Lovass, Chris Muirden, Amelia Savige, Julie Norney and Georgie Meehan
Results:
Men Premier Division 1st
- Steve Dinneen 18:36
- James O’Connell 19:23
- Peter Green 19:28
- Nick Baggott 18:55
- Dion Finocchiaro 18:45
- Will Potter 18:35
Men Division 2 9th
- Klarie McIntyre 20:17
- Zac Hunter 20:46
- Jackson Deane 23:02
- David Jiminez 22:13
- Welday Mebrahtu 21:26
- Andre Waring 19:58
Men Division 4 5th
- Brent Harris 22:25
- Andrew Hester 21:54
- Luke Crozier 23:26
- Chris O’Connor 23:51
- Ben Cox 21:27
Men Division 6 7th
- Conor Yung 25:40
- Robert Ashbridge 24:31
- Steven Ross 28:21
- Simon St. Hill 28:04
Men Division 7 dnf
- Tony Rule 30:43
- Andrew Tunne 30:02
3.
4.
Men 40+ 2nd
- Chris Bradford 20:58
- Tony Langelaan 22:26
- Anthony Whitby 24:51
Men 50+ 2nd
- Peter Stefanos 23:13
- Graeme Olden 24:32
- John Meagher 20:34
Men Under 20 1st
- Alex Ritchie 19:56
- Matt O’Donnell 19:22
- Scott McKenzie 19:21
Men Under 18 6th
- Sam Rattray 9:52
- Lucas Pamminger 10:14
- Kieren Hesse 10:36
Men Under 14 1st
- Murray Lovass 11:03
- Connor Ogilvie 10:47
- Mac Anderson 10:28
Women Premier Division 8th
- Georgia Meehan 22:52
- Julie Norney 22:35
- Audrey Campkin-Smith 22:56
- Rachel Johnson 26:24
- Amelia Savige 27:28
Women Over 40 8th
- Megan Sloane 30:31
- Kerry Putt 29:19
- Pia Hunter 28:12
Women Under 20 7th
- Jess Muirden 12:31
- Zoe Schwerkolt 14:29
- Chloe Rosenberg 13:00
Women Under 18 7th
- Louise Ton 11:34
- Sophie Schwerkolt 12:29
- Amy Rives 11:20
Women Under 16 2nd
- Tamsyn Lovass 11:30
- Georgia Durham 11:46
- Molly McCarthy 10:53
CLUB 5K HANDICAP: 11 April, 2016
Box Hill AC has run this event now for 25 years and inevitably someone runs the Bennettswood course a lot quicker than predicted. That happened again this year. However, of more interest was the fact that we had four runners who bettered 16 minutes which is noteworthy. I don’t think that this has occurred previously in our race.
Isabelle Napier’s estimate of her expected race time was the most inaccurate of all the starters and consequently, she won by over two minutes. This is sure to be remembered by the handicapper next year! Nevertheless this was an extremely good run by Isabelle, who is not used to running more than 30m on the pole vault runway! Second was Tony Rule who also ran much faster than predicted. Third was Blake Lucas who was clearly treated way too sympathetically by the handicapper. Andre Waring impressed in fourth place recording a very quick 15:46. Others to run extremely fast were Matt O’Donnell; (15:52), Alex Ritchie (15:58) and Steve Dinneen, who ran 15:13 in a fine hit out prior to the Cross Country Relays. Zac Hunter also performed creditably recording 16:32. The fastest female was Julie Norney who took 19:12 to complete this relatively flat course.
Thanks to Peter Stefanos, Graeme Olden and Chris O’Connor who attended to the setting out of the course and the handicap marks and Bert Pelgrim who took the times at the finish.
Race details
| Place | Name | Elapsed time | Actual time |
| 1 | Isabelle Napier | 24:04 | 23:04 |
| 2 | Tony Rule | 26:03 | 23:03 |
| 3 | Blake Lucas | 26:09 | 23:09 |
| 4 | Andre Waring | 27:06 | 15:46 |
| 5 | Scott Lawrence | 27:31 | 19:31 |
| 6 | Matt O’Donnell | 27:37 | 15:52 |
| 7 | Alex Ritchie | 27:48 | 15:58 |
| 8 | Andrew Hester | 27:50 | 17:55 |
| 9 | Graeme Olden | 27:52 | 19:12 |
| 10 | Pia Hunter | 28:00 | 23:00 |
| 11 | June Petrie | 28:01 | 20:01 |
| 12 | Zac Hunter | 28:12 | 16:32 |
| 13 | Steve Preece | 28:13 | 18:23 |
| 14 | Steve Dinneen | 28:13 | 15:13 |
| 15 | Amelia Savige | 28:18 | 22:18 |
| 16 | Tony Langelaan | 28:20 | 17:50 |
| 17 | Peter Stefanos | 28:20 | 18:50 |
| 18 | Julie Norney | 28:22 | 19:12 |
| 19 | Kerry Putt | 28:42 | 23:42 |
| 20 | Brent Harris | 28:46 | 17:46 |
| 21 | Caitlin Harrison | 29:08 | 24:08 |
| 22 | Jo Hajjar | 29:15 | 24:15 |
| 23 | Carlos Norman | 29:20 | 19:20 |
| 24 | Rachel Johnson | 29:52 | 21:22 |
| 25 | Josh James | 30:38 | 23:38 |
XCR’16 CALENDAR
Round 2 – Wandin Park Cross Country Date: Saturday 7 May
8km for open men, 4km for open women, various junior distances
Round 3 – Cruden Farm Cross Country Date: Saturday 21 May
16km cross country for open men and 6km for open women, various junior distances
Round 4 – Lake Wendouree Road Race Date: Saturday 4 June
15km for open men and women, 5km for juniors
Round 5 – Bundoora Cross Country Champs Date: Saturday 18 June
This day incorporates the Victorian All Schools Cross Country Championships and also serves as the selection trial for the Australian Cross Country Championships. The open and overage men’s race covers 12km while the women’s race covers 10km. Juniors race over 3km, 4km, 6km or 8km.
Round 6 – Sandown Road Relay Date: Saturday 9 July
6.2km legs for open ages, 3.1km for juniors
Round 7 – Albert Park Road Race Date: Sunday 17 July
10km open race, 3km junior race
Round 8 – Anglesea Surf Coast Ekiden Relay Date: Saturday 6 August
Various distances
Round 9 – Victorian Half Marathon Date: Sunday 4 September
21.1km along Burnley boulevard (no junior races)
Round 10 – Tan Relays Date: Saturday 17 September
Each runner complete the 3.8km lap of the tan
REGISTRATIONS NOW DUE
Note: presently the AV registration website is down!
We expect the registration website to be functional again very soon.
Registrations for the new 2016/17 athletics year are now open. Register online via the Athletics Victoria website. Note that AV have introduced a new fee structure.
In short, you will pay one fee to join Athletics Victoria and another fee to join the club. You can then pay an XCR fee which gives you free entry to all AV cross country and road events or a Track and Field fee, which gives you entry to shield competition (or you choose the “maxpack” which gives you entry to both XCR and Shield).
There are four options for members in each age group.
Option 1 is recommended for those who plan to run XCR and Shield competition (we hope this includes most of our distance runners).
Option 2 is for those athletes who only compete in summer.
Option 3 is for those who wish to only compete in the cross country and road events and not the summer season.
Option 4 is for athletes who wish to only compete in winter relay events and/or pay an individual entry fee for each event, or those who do not wish to compete in XCR or Shield competition.
Note that you can upgrade your membership at any stage throughout the year.
Open:
Option 1: $390 [$100 (AV fee) + $90 (Club Fee) + $200 (XCR + Shield)]
Option 2: $315 [$100 (AV fee) + $90 (Club Fee) + $125 (Shield)]
Option 3: $315 [$100 (AV fee) + $90 (Club Fee) + $125 (XCR)]
Option 4: $190 [$100 (AV fee) + $90 (Club Fee) + Individual entries (no shield)]
Junior (under 20 years of age as of Dec. 31 2016):
Option 1: $300 [$80 (AV fee) + $70 (Club Fee) + $150 (XCR + Shield)]
Option 2: $250 [$80 (AV fee) + $70 (Club Fee) + $100 (Shield)]
Option 3: $250 [$80 (AV fee) + $70 (Club Fee) + $100 (XCR)]
Option 4: $150 [$80 (AV fee) + $70 (Club Fee) + Individual entries (no shield)]
Dual Registration with Little Aths
Option 1: $125 [$50 (AV fee) + $0 (Club Fee) + $75 (XCR + Shield)]
Option 2: $105 [$50 (AV fee) + $0 (Club Fee) + $55 (Shield)]
Option 3: $105 [$50 (AV fee) + $0 (Club Fee) + $55 (XCR)]
Option 4: $50 [$50 (AV fee) + $0 (Club Fee) + Individual entries (no shield)]
Family discount $15 per person available when three (3) or more Open or Junior athletes reside at the same address and register at the same time.
Life members and international representatives should contact the Club to organize their registration.
Please let us know if you have any questions about registration.
Jells Park Relays 16 April 2016
Box Hill AC had a brilliant opening to the 2016 XCR Winter season, with the highlight being a cracking win in the Men’s Premier Division. We also won the Under 14 Boys’ Relay and the Under 20 Men’s relay. This was a really great performance and the Division 1 team members performed extraordinarily well, not taking the lead until a decisive last leg from Will Potter who ran 33 seconds faster than he did in 2015, a tremendous improvement and had the tenth fastest time of all the competitors. Three hundred and eleven teams were entered, which is a clear sign of a very successful Cross Country and Road season to come. .
Last year, James O’Connell and Nick Baggott distinguished themselves with excellent runs in Division 2. This year they absolutely excelled in Division 1. James O’Connell improved his time over the two lap circuit by a huge 31 seconds, a great improvement and Nick Baggott improved by a massive 80 seconds, a monumental breakthrough and a wonderful achievement with a time of 18:55. He is now in the elite area of distance running performance with this effort. Peter Green put up one of Box Hill’s gamest performances in recent years, after being ill during the week. Despite being crook, he .still competed and improved his time from 2015 by nine seconds. That was a sensational effort. His gutsy run enabled Box Hill to stay in contention. If he had not run, and run this time, Box Hill would not have won the gold or the silver medal. We would probably have come away with the bronze.
We expected that Melbourne University, Geelong and Knox would be our main opponents. Knox had a depleted team so they were not in contention, once the race commenced. We overlooked APS and SSH both of whom excelled themselves, especially SSH, which has not really been competitive since the days of the Sansonetti brothers, Max Little, Gary Bentley, Andrew Garnham, Steve Roach and others, performed at the top level of their capability. Long term SSH official, Pat Robinson, who is also an integral part of the Victorian Milers Club, said after the race, whilst watching the medal presentation ceremony that she was absolutely thrilled with the SSH result. Well, we came away with the main prize, a season’s opening win, which was sensational. Box Hill didn’t actually get to the lead until; the last leg, with Will Potter running in the most determined way. It was clear from when he took off, he was a man on a mission and he had he goods.
The race started with Steve Dinneen leading off for Box Hill. He ran an outstanding opening leg. He was in fourth place after the first lap, running a swift first lap of 9:11. Melbourne University led, followed by Geelong and APS. In the second lap, Steve got past his APS opponent and ran through the changeover point in 3rd place. Melbourne Uni’s Andrew Buchanan ran the fastest time of the day, recording 17:45, a huge effort, 51 seconds in front of our team. Geelong were 13 seconds ahead with Julian Spence running 18:23.
James O’Connell was next off and he completed the first lap in second place just behind his Geelong opponent with two other teams, APS and Glenhuntly, breathing down his neck. James held on as best he could in the second lap in improving his 2015 time by a very big margin as noted above, but the athlete from Melbourne University and A PS overtook the Geelong runner and James in the second lap, but of importance was that all the teams were in sight. .
As mentioned earlier, Peter Green had been most unwell during the week and he ran a great, determined leg, as well as improving his best time on the course by a significant amount. SSH moved from fifth to second in this leg. Melbourne University remained in the lead with a 43 second margin over SSH. APS were a further 17 seconds behind, third and Geelong was fourth, 18 seconds behind APS, with Box Hill fifth 9 seconds behind Geelong. We were still in the mix with strength in the back end, plus we suspected that Melbourne University might have run their three strongest runners in the first three legs, so were moderately confident that we could figure in the medals.
Nick Baggott was next out and ran brilliantly taking a massive chunk out of his best time. First he passed the Geelong runner in the first lap, and then he got by the APS runner, so when he completed his two circuits, Box Hill was third12 seconds behind second-placed SSH and 26 seconds behind the leaders, Melbourne University. This was a spellbinding contest with the only constant, at this point being Melbourne University holding the lead. Nicks leg kept us right in the hunt and he handed over to Dion Finocchiara.
Dion is extremely fit at the moment and he ran a marvellous leg. He drew lewvel with the athletes from APS and SSH at the end of his first circuit. These three teams were together at the end of his leg, although he had moved in front of APS. There was only a second in it, with Will Potterr to run our last leg. We were pretty confident that we were definitely on track for a medal, but what colour would it be. The leading three teams had opened a gap of more than a minute over Geelong, fourth and Melbourne University, fifth who were close together.
Will ran a really quick first lap so had built up a lead of 20 seconds over SSH and 26 seconds over APS. When he appeared in the distance on his way to the finish, he had maintained the lead, with APS passing SSH for second and Will maintained his lead until the finish, although he needed to be reminded to actually cross the official finishing point which he did quickly. So the outcome was that we won the Men’s Premier division by 11 seconds over APS with SSH a further 9 seconds behind in third place. This was really great result for Box Hill and we hope to have several athletes who have been ill or injured return to strengthen the team for races later in the season.
The Division 2 team faced a hard race, with the three top placed teams performing extremely well. Essendon, relegated from Division 1 a couple of years ago, had a good team but were eclipsed by Western Athletics, anchored by a brilliant first leg by Cody Shanahan who ran the second fastest time of the day (17:48). This was a phenomenal effort. Mitch Brown ran the last leg for Essendon, and ran a super quick 17:51, but couldn’t overhaul the leader. Klarie McIntyre and Andre Waring both ran quickly and their times, along with our other athletes who competed, are listed below.
Premier Division
Stephen Dinneen 9:11 9:25 18.36
James O’Connell 9:25 9:58 19.23
Peter Green 9:31 9:57 19.28
Nicholas Baggott 9:24 9:31 18.55
Dion Finocchiara 9:17 9:28 18:45
William Potter 9:05 9:30 18.35
- Box Hill 113:44
- APS 113:55
- SSH 114:04
- Geelong 115.33
- Melbourne University 115:55
- Collingwood 118:21
Division 2
Klarie McIntyre 10:02 10:15 20.17
Zac Hunter 10:04 10:42 20.46
Jackson Deane 10:53 12:09 23.02
David Jimenez 10:58 11:15 22.13
Welday Mebrahtu 10:53 10.33 21:26
Andre Waring 9:52 10:07 19:59
- Western Suburbs 118:36
- Essendon 119:42
- Ballarat 121:37
9 Box Hill 127:43
Leading performances
Andrew Buchanan M. Uni 17:45
Cody Shanahan Wes. 17:48
Mitch Brown Ess. 17:41
Craig Appleby Knox. 18:03
Ben Ashkettle Don 18:11
Jack Davies Ball. 18:12
Julian Spence Geel. 18:23
Tim Norton Ring. 18:25
Nick Wightman Geel. 18:33
Will Potter BH 18:35
Steve Dinneen BH 18:36
Lachlan Connell SSH 18:35
Sean Guiney APS 18:41
Anthony Aloisio Rich. 18:44
Dion Finocchiara BH 18:45
Adam Pyke APS 18:45