Lachlan Hallett did well to win the M17-39 class of the SA Sprint Championships in the prevailing conditions, beating Bruce Arthur from Victoria by 12 seconds followed by John Nieuwenhoven – a great improver, 16 seconds further back. Lachlan completed the 3.4 Km course in 16:29, the race was closely contested as the first four runners finished within 30 seconds of each other, recording less than 5 minutes per Km.

The championships started wet with thunderstorms and flooding in surrounding areas. We were lucky to have only light rain, albeit inconvenient. The area used is a local wooded park at the foot of Black Hill with numerous tracks but no buildings. The map had to be corrected at the last minute to include prominent vegetation, to assist in navigation – to compensate for the lack of other prominent features, usually on sprint maps.

Susanne Casanova won the W17-39 and has been running extremely well since returning from Europe. Susanne’s time was 17:34, followed by Zebedy Hallett and Mallory Hughes.

The inclusion of the M/W 50+ categories saw a good interest in the entries as these were reluctant to mix with the younger faster runners. M50+ John Lyon from Tintookies winning the 3.0 Km course in 21:55 and Onkaparinga Hills’ Robin Uppill first in W50+ completing the 2.6 Km course in 19:57. Doug Lee won the M40+ and Erica Diment  the W40+. First in M16 was Ben Diment and Nadia Velaitis excelled in W16.

It is a credit to the course setter Phil Hazell to set interesting courses in the challenging small area. Only accolades were heard from the competitors.

Maarten  Nieuwenhoven