Regional Relays 2007

Another huge day of relays – it’s always great to see the excited faces of the Under 9 as they go out to battle for the first time. Good to see young Kate Ryan adopting the right attitude when she heard a Knox coach tell his kids that they’d win easily. Kate responded with words to the effect of “No you won’t” and even better followed up with her actions. While there were many super runs on the day, it was hard not to miss Harrison’s 60 second 400m run in chasing down the boys in the U12 medley. He didn’t quite get Knox, but I’d be very surprised if we don’t get through in second place. Fraser and Callum got out of their sick beds to run big 400m races as well, while our Under 9 girls 4x200m (Bridgette, Eliza, Kate and Georgia are now known as the dream team) put on a show at the end of the day running a phenomenal 2:20. And around lunchtime our awesome foursome of Ed, James, Henry and Harrison turned on a clinic to claim gold as well. The surprise of course was our win in the U13 Mixed Sex 4x200m, so congratulations to Maddie, Jessica, Callum and Tom. Our U12 boys (Feliks and Oscar) both ran PBs in the 4x200m which was great to see and set up our super time of 1:55 for second place behind Doncaster in the final. Our time would have won gold at the states last year. The best look of the day was by Lachlan Collins, who drove back up from Warrnambool (I think) that morning, and turned up with the most intimidating set of shades and ran the first leg of the 4x200m like Michael Johnson to set up his U9 team up for bronze. All up I think we claimed three golds, six silvers and four bronze and about four fourth placings as well – probably our best effort at these titles since the 80s. Well done to Will, Ned, Annabel and Sophie who had incredibly long days (they had to run heats at 8.39am) and kept going to the end. I will not know officially which teams have qualified for states on December 16 for at least a week but I expect all of our 4x200m A squads to have qualified along with our U10 4x100m Mixed Sex. Our three winning teams automatically qualify of course. Those teams that finished second in the Mixed Sex 4x200m are also a chance, as is our U11 and U12 boys medley sides – but because those race are straight finals at the states – our qualification is dependent on times at other regions.