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Rich prizes for Landy night

Prizes and giveaways valued at nearly $9000 will be distributed at Landy Trophy night at Doncaster on February 20.

In addition to the usual array of prizes, this year’s meeting will feature gifts valued at $35 for every competitor in the night’s three events, The Landy Trophy, The Manningham Mile and The Doncaster Dash.

As well as sponsoring vouchers to the value of $250 for placegetters in The Landy final and the winners of the Consolation and Young Guns finals, Runners World of East Kew will provide a $10 voucher for the competitors’ bags for all events.

Doncaster beauty salon Beauty Necessities will provide four $120 vouchers for competition by female entrants in The Landy Trophy and The Manningham Mile plus a $25 voucher for each competitor’s bag.

Prominent Doncaster venue members John and Faye Browne, proprietors of Motto fashion boutiques, have again donated prize vouchers to the value of $200 for the best overall performance by a woman in The Landy and the fastest women in the two rounds of heats.

RHSports of Ringwood will provide an $80 stopwatch for the fastest competitor in each of the rounds of heats and one to the winner The Doncaster Dash.

Then, of course, there are all the usual Landy night trophies, The Manningham Mile perpetual trophy, valued at $1600, plus the winner’s replica ($800), The Doncaster Dash perpetual trophy ($800), The Landy Trophy ($800) and the unique ornately-framed and signed photo of John Landy which the winner holds for a year.

This year’s winner will take home a ‘new-look’ perpetual trophy as it has had to be re-framed and re-signed, increasing the number of ‘windows’ for winners’ names from 12 to 22.

Doncaster officials obviously had their doubts at the start as to whether the event would last for 12 years, but now they’re confident of at least another ten.

This year’s winner will be No 13 – a number which will be lucky for someone!

Entries for The Landy Trophy close on February 8.

Landy’s Name Lives On

By Richard Trembath

The name John Landy has long been associated with excellence in Australian athletics. Since the day more than half a century ago when he ran a mile in 3:57.9 in Turku, Finland, to break Roger Bannister’s world record and become only the second man in history to run sub-four-minutes, Landy has had a secure place in the history of the sport.

Memorable as that performance was, however, he is just as well known for his remarkable action in going back to assist fallen compatriot Ron Clarke in the 1956 Australian Championships mile, which he went on to win.

The high regard in which Landy has always been held and his incredible record of off-track achievements and service to the community have since seen him serve as Governor of Victoria, a role from which he stepped down at the conclusion of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006.

It is appropriate, therefore, that the event which has evolved during the past 13 years as the most prestigious in Australian Masters’ Athletics is called The Landy Trophy.

Run annually at the Doncaster venue of Victorian Masters’ Athletics, the race honours Landy the athlete rather than Landy the Governor, having been run for the first time, in 2000, shortly before he was appointed to office.

On that night officials were still taking entries at 7.20pm, with the first heat due to start 10 minutes later, and the perpetual trophy was awarded on points earned in the heats and went to Jan Morrey, a multiple World Masters’ Championship winner and Australian record holder. There were no supporting events, no ‘take home’ trophy and the guest of honour, standing in for Landy, was Australia’s greatest sprinter, Mexico City Olympics 200 metres silver medallist Peter Norman.

These days entries close 10 days in advance, there is a mile event for open class runners, a sprint for members of Little Athletics, trophies and giveaways valued at more than $8000 and a handsome program featuring fields and ‘form comment’ for all runners. Landy and several other Olympians are usually in attendance and sponsors vie to lend their support to the meeting.

Over the years the event has attracted entries from as far afield as Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia and the United States. Last year’s final featured competitors from five states and was claimed in a message from Australian Masters’ Athletics to officials of World Masters’ Athletics to be the best field ever assembled in a single race anywhere in the world.

The Landy Trophy meeting, which also features The Manningham Mile (sponsored by Manningham YMCA) and The Doncaster Dash, is unique in that all events are run from handicaps based on the internationally recognised Age-Graded Percentage Scale, which makes allowance for age and gender, thus enabling all entrants to compete on level terms.

‘The Landy’ is designed to identify ‘the best of the best’ in a searching test which demands a blend of speed, stamina, versatility, courage, endurance, fitness and all-round ability. The format consists of two rounds of heats, over 200 metres and 1000 metres, with points being allotted according to finishing positions. The top eight points scorers go into the final over 400 metres, the next eight into the Consolation final while the next eight of those aged 54 and under contest the Young Guns’ final. All this in just over two hours on a Monday night.

The fact that the system works is evidenced by the make-up of the 2003 final when there were seven entrants from varying age-groups who had won at world level. All of them made the final and they filled positions one to six, with only a world silver medallist, who finished seventh, spoiling the perfect sequence.

Of the eight finalists last year, five went on to the World Championships in Sacramento US later in the year, all returning home with at least one gold medal each.

The winner in 2003 was the remarkable Mike Johnston, an 81-year-old from Mentone, a bayside suburb of Melbourne, who took up athletics at age 57. Johnston ran as a youngster but World War II intervened and he never had the opportunity to put his ability to the test in open class on the world stage.

He more than made up for it in Masters’ Athletics though, winning multiple gold medals at World, Australian and Victorian Championships, setting records at every level in doing so. At the time of his Landy win he held every Australian record from 100 metres to 800 metres in both the Men’s 75-79 and 80-84 age groups, was still running 15.1 for the 100 and held the world record of 72.85 seconds for 800.

Perhaps even more remarkable is that, after a year off following arthroscopic surgery on his knee, Johnston returned in 2005 at age 83 and won again, confounding the doubters by running faster time than two years earlier.

While Johnston is the oldest competitor to have won The Landy, the first dual winner, Ross Kent, coincidentally also from Mentone, was in the M55-59 age group when he scored in 2001 and 2002. The fairer sex have also been more than competitive over the years, with Jan Morrey winning in 2000 before finishing second the following year and Queenslander Marge Allison victorious in 2010.

Another of the girls, Victorian star Kathy Heagney, is undoubtedly the most successful runner never to have won a Landy, having run second on three occasions, in 2002, 2006 and again last year.

While Johnston and Kent were the stars of the early years, however, the event has been dominated in recent times by the brilliant veteran Hugh Coogan, from Queensland.

Coogan, now 76, has won the event four times, three in a row from 2006 to 2008 then again last year.

A multiple world champion and world record holder, Coogan astounded the Masters’ Athletics community late last year when, within the space of two weeks, he broke the world record for 200 metres for the Men’s 75-79 age-group, then twice lowered the world 400 metres record, reducing it to a remarkable 64.10 seconds.

The supporting events on Landy night were introduced in 2004 and the standard of The Manningham Mile has been adequately demonstrated with the wins of former star Doncaster junior Katherine Katsanevakis, who scored in 2005 at age 16, going on two weeks later to win the Australian Women’s Open 800 metre championship.

Katsanevakis has since taken a second National title but in last year’s Manningham Mile had to play second-fiddle to one of Australia’s rising stars, David McNeill, who had earlier proven his class by beating the Kenyans in Australia’s top track classic, the Zatopek 10,000.

The value of The Doncaster Dash form is as yet unproven, but you could do worse than jot down the names of two of the event’s multiple winners, Bronte Gange and Wes Spargo, in your ‘little black book’.

The generosity of many sponsors over the years has enabled organisers to transform The Landy Trophy meeting from an obscure event first held at Doncaster on a Monday night in 2000 into what is arguably the most prestigious Masters’ Athletics event in the world.

As Doncaster officials point out, the result of using the automatic handicaps provided by the Age-Graded Percentage Scale is that winning The Landy is much more difficult than winning a World Championship. Think about it – eight athletes can go off to the ‘worlds’ and come back with gold medals. But when they line up in the final at Doncaster, only one will go home with The Landy Trophy.

Nevertheless, The Landy Trophy is not an event for only the elite – it is for every club runner at every Masters’ venue everywhere. Sure, it will be won by an elite athlete, but runners of every standard set themselves realistic targets, some to win a heat, or be placed in one, some merely to finish the event.

Some, of course, have slightly higher aspirations, typified by one athlete who remarked at the end of the evening after finishing mid-field in the Consolation a couple of years ago: ‘I can die happy – I’ve run in a Landy final.’

For most, running in The Landy is not about winning, it is about the challenge – about being the best they can be.

The event is designed to take everyone – sprinters and stayers alike – out of their comfort zones. The distance runners hate the 200m heats, the sprinters hate the 1000m heats and when it comes finals time at the end of the night, everyone hates the 400m.

So if you’re into Masters’ Athletics and you want to set yourself a challenge, you’ll get no better opportunity than to line up at the start in The Landy Trophy.

Just getting to the finishing line will be your reward.

Exciting program ahead

Summer’s here and it’s competition time for members of Masters’ Athletics, who have an exciting few months ahead. Most of our members have a relatively quiet winter but 2012 has arrived full of promise for those who love the sport and the challenge of competition on the track.

First up is Doncaster’s feature event, The Landy Trophy, on February 20, followed by the Victorian Championships at Doncaster on March 24 and 25, then the Australian Championships at Melbourne’s new Lakeside Stadium in Albert Park from April 5 to 9.

Obviously what all this means is that not only should athletes be starting to do some specific target training but should also be attending to entries.

Entries for The Landy are first to close, on February 8, and, with quite a few of the usual ‘hotshots’ likely to be missing at the Oceania Championships in New Zealand, this could be the year in which many athletes will have their best chance.

Nevertheless, The Landy is not so much about winning as it is about participation and challenging yourself to complete two rounds of heats (200m and 1000m) and, hopefully, a 400m final, all from age-graded marks, in the one night.

Every year we hear people saying they haven’t entered because they can’t win, but you can bet those same people will go to venues every week and enter events they know they can’t win. There’s no difference except that Landy night provides more atmosphere and more of a challenge, which certainly will help in the preparation of those intending to contest either the State or National Championships.

Entries for the Nationals close on March 2 and for the Victorian Championships on March 8. There is no restriction on field sizes for the Vics or the Nationals but there is for The Landy, so get in now..!! If nothing else, it will provide an excellent warm-up for the others.

The Landy Trophy

Doncaster, February 20

Entries Close: Friday, February 8

Victorian Masters Pentathlon Championships

Duncan McKinnon Reserve, Glen Eira, March 4

Entries Close: February 16

Download VMA Multi Championship 2012 Entry Form  

Victorian Masters Track & Field Championships

Doncaster, March 24-25.

Entries Close: Thursday, March 8

Download Victorian Masters Track & Field Championships 2012 Entry Form  

Australian Masters Track & Field Championships

Lakeside Stadium, Albert Park. April 6-9

Entries Close: Thursday, March 2

Download AMA 2012 Entry Form  

VMA Annual Subscriptions Now Due

Subscriptions become due on the 1st January each year.

For more information, please visit the Membership page of   Victorian Masters Athletics

Download VMA 2012 Membership Form  

‘Mr Consistency’ takes Christmas Handicap

Phil Rosevear, the ‘Mr Consistency’ of Doncaster Masters’ Athletics, added another title to his impressive collection when he took the coveted Christmas Handicap of 100 metres at the club’s Christmas break-up meeting.

Rosevear, 62, is one of only three current Doncaster members who were at the venue’s opening meeting in November 1996 and has never been out of the top echelon of sprinters. He has been a regular gold medalist in the sprints at the Victorian Championships over the years and more recently took Doncaster’s Winter Series, conducted over six weeks in August.

After a comfortable win in his heat, Rosevear ran 12.8 seconds from the four-metre mark to score by nearly a metre from David McConnell (3m) with Graham Ford (5m) and Kay Burnie (27m) another half-metre away in a dead-heat for third with Bev Learmont (26m) fifth in the same time as the dead-heaters.

The finish certainly proved the wisdom of officials’ decision to use video equipment for a photo finish. Ironically Rosevear’s win in the Winter Series involved two of the same placegetters, with Ford taking second just ahead of McConnell.

Links to Youtube videos: Heat 1, Heat 2, Handicap Final

The other highlight of the night was the counting of votes for the Most Improved Award which saw a last vote win by Andrea Fortington (11) over Karen Carah, who finished on nine. Graham Ford was third on seven, just ahead of Graham Walter on six.

Fortington, 34, joined Masters’ Athletics early in 2010, shortly after giving birth to twins. She improved sufficiently during the year to finish second to David McConnell in the Most Improved Award that year and continued to do so throughout 2011 before taking a break from competition at the venue to contest a triathlon in October.

Final voting for the Most Improved Award:

11	- Andrea Fortington
9	- Karen Carah
7	- Graham Ford
6	- Graham Walter
3	- Nick Carah, Phil Rosevear
2	- Greg Champion, Bev Learmont, Ross McDonald, Richard Trembath
1	- Marg Tweedie

Bad dog, Monty…!!!

Doncaster’s Saturday morning group training is usually a fun time, conducted at a variety of venues which vary in terrain and traffic – some have hills, some have cyclists, some have pedestrians, some have dogs and some have the lot. Usually it’s only the dogs which cause any trouble and one of our number tends to be among the missing whenever we go to renowned ‘doggy’ venues.

Nevertheless, there’s never been an incident of note other than the day on the riverbank at Warrandyte when one of our members dodged a dog and bowled over a little kid, whose Mummy and Daddy were not amused.

But that all changed at the group’s recent session at its newest training venue, along the Plenty River Trail, in Viewbank. Venue manager Richard Trembath had checked it out and assured members they would have no problems with dogs, cyclists, pedestrians, snakes, low-flying aircraft or anything else.

But he hadn’t counted on Monty.

Monty is a big, black, woolly, friendly dog whose owner, Deirdre Black, often brings him to Saturday morning training. There’s nearly always someone there who has an injury of some sort which restricts them to walking, so usually they get to walk Monty.

This arrangement has worked fairly well over time except for one day when Monty was in the care of Don McLean, who had a minor knee injury. Don and Monty were going along quietly when Monty spotted something, lurched forward and gave Don’s knee a tweak, turning the ‘minor’ injury into a relatively major one, from which he still hasn’t fully recovered.

Needless to say, there are all sorts of injuries in Masters’ Athletics, but very few can claim to have a dog-walking injury!

On the day in question, however, training hadn’t even started and the assembled throng were making their last minute adjustments before setting off. One of our number – referred to by some as ‘the leader of the pack’ – was down on one knee tightening his shoe laces….when Monty apparently mistook his leg for a tree.

It happened in a flash, right at the moment the other dozen members of the group all happened to be looking in the right direction at the right time. Needless to say there was uproar as the unfortunate victim snatched handfuls of grass to wipe a very wet leg.

Amid the hilarity it seemed that Monty was instantly elevated to ‘folk hero’ status despite the protestations of the single voice demanding that his membership of the club be revoked.

Anyway, it now seems that rather than being granted honorary membership of Doncaster venue, as had seemed likely, Monty will in future be regarded with great suspicion by all those who come any closer to him than the length of a dog’s lead.

Bad dog, Monty….!!!

Subtle changes for The Landy, 2012.

You’ll probably need to be concentrating to notice them, but there will be some subtle changes at the 13th running of The Landy Trophy, to be held at Doncaster on the night of Monday, February 20 next year. For a start, it’s likely there will be a different winner for a change.

Superstar Queenslander Hugh Coogan, who has won The Landy four times in the past six years, has indicated he’s most unlikely to be back to defend his title. Coogan, 76, who recently twice broke the world record for 400 metres in the Men’s 75-79 age-group, is planning to contest the Oceania Championships in Tauranga, New Zealand, which finish only a week before The Landy. ‘I think it would be a bit of a rush to try to do both,’ said Coogan recently. ‘We’ve already booked for New Zealand so I don’t think I’ll be doing The Landy.’

Coogan has won The Landy on every occasion he has contested it, having missed 2009 and 2010 with a leg injury. He is the only runner ever to have broken 45 seconds for the final distance of 400 metres from age-graded marks but has done it in all four of his wins, setting the record of 43.45 seconds in his first win, in 2006. Coogan’s automatic mark in his current age-group is 121m, which means he actually has to run 279m. His recent Australian record of 45.73 for 300m would suggest he might even break 43.0 over the Landy distance.. But if he’s not there, then other Landy entrants are not going to have to worry about that and one of them will take home the ‘new look’ perpetual trophy.

The trophy, a framed photo of John Landy winning the mile at the 1956 Australian Championships at Olympic Park, was instituted when the race was first run, in 2000. At the time, officials allowed 12 ‘windows’ for insertion of the names of the winners but those windows are now full, so the trophy has had to be redesigned and reframed.

Doncaster venue manager Richard Trembath explained there were a couple of reasons for limiting the number of windows to 12. ‘Most of these sorts of events in Masters seem to last six or eight years if they’re lucky and I thought 12 would probably be plenty,’ he said. ‘In any case, I thought if it lasted 12 years that by that time I would be well out of it and it would be someone else’s problem, but I was wrong about that too.’

So The Landy Trophy is in the process of being reframed, this time with an extra eight windows, and the new ‘insert’ has been freshly signed by Landy, now 81 and a former Governor of Victoria, in whose honour it is named.

The event has come to be recognized as Australia’s premier single Masters’ event and earlier this year Australian Masters’ Athletics officials contacted World Masters’ Athletics executive members suggesting the 2011 final was the finest field ever to line up in a single event in the history of the sport.

This assertion was given more credibility by the fact that the five finalists who later went to the World Championships in Sacramento, US, all came home with gold medals. Trembath said he believed it was harder to win The Landy Trophy than a World Championship. ‘On several occasions we’ve had half a dozen world gold medalists line up in a Landy final,’ he said. ‘They might all go to the World Championships and win the gold in the 400 in their age-group but only one of them will go home with The Landy Trophy.’

Of the 2010 Landy final placegetters, Hugh Coogan won the 100, 200 and 400m in Sacramento, second placegetter Kathy Heagney won her 400 and third placegetter Leo Coffey didn’t go. Tasmania’s Mick Stevenson, who finished fourth, didn’t win on the flat in the US but won gold in the long hurdles. The most recent final featured runners from five states plus the ACT and Doncaster officials are hoping for a strong interstate representation again.

Landy entries are now open and close on February 10.

Landy 2012 Entry Form  

Coogan dazzles in Queensland

Queensland star Hugh Coogan obviously can’t be claimed by Doncaster but there’s no doubt his spectacular achievements provide a certain amount of reflected glory for the venue’s flagship event, The Landy Trophy, which he has won on four occasions in the past six years.

Coogan has been beaten only once -- in a heat he didn’t need to win -- in 12 runs at The Landy. The only other blemish on his record is that he missed two years with an Achilles tendon injury.

Now 76, however, it seems he is running as well, if not better, than ever.

Coogan won three individual gold medals – in the 100, 200 and 400 metres – at the World Championships in Sacramento, US, in July but it seems he misjudged his training schedule and didn’t ‘peak’ until November, or at least late October. In the space of three weeks from late October, in fact, he broke his own Australian records for 60 metres, 100m and 200m (twice) and twice broke the world record for 400m.

In addition to those, he also set a Queensland record of 45.73 for 300m, which is the best ever run in the age-group in Australia but not recognized as a National mark as it is not a Championship distance. Coogan’s first 200m record was at Griffith University on October 23 when he ran 28.71 to improve his own mark of 28.83.

Then 45 minutes later he broke the World M75-79 record for 400m, running 65.04 to better German athlete Wilhelm Selzer’s 2002 mark of 65.34. Two weeks later Coogan was back in action at the QE 2 Stadium in Brisbane and again shattered the record, this time unbelievably taking more than a second off the earlier mark in recording a dazzling 64.10.

While Coogan obviously is ‘on fire’, Doncaster’s regular record-breaker, star walker Andrew Jamieson, also added another one to his tally, producing a brilliant 9m 33.05s for 2000 metres in Athletics Victoria inter-club competition at Doncaster, taking 37 seconds off the Australian M65-69 record previously set by Bob Gardiner in 2001.

Jamieson, 65, the World Masters’ Athlete of the Year in 2009, now holds 28 Australian walking records stretching over four age-groups, from M50 to M65, and 11 world records.

Doncaster a close second in Coburg relay.

A valiant effort by the Doncaster Green team saw it fail narrowly in its bid to win the annual Barb Dalgleish Memorial Relay run at Coburg on November 10.

After qualifying fastest of the 16 teams, Doncaster Green took a further second off its time for the 4 x 200 metres to record a creditable 1min 49.49sec in the final but after leading most of the way, was run down in the straight by the Collingwood Cruisers, who recorded 1m 48.49s. Coburg was third in 1m 50.58s.

The win was the sixth in succession by Collingwood, which has dominated the event since Doncaster’s wins the first two years it was held. Doncaster has missed a place only once, last year, but has been unable to overcome the strength of Collingwood, which this year had seven teams contest the event, which also features teams from Coburg, Aberfeldie and the family of the late Barb Dalgleish, whose memory it honours.

Doncaster Green was made up of Mark Crawford (52), Karen Carah (43), Kevin Bates (53) and David McConnell (59). The conditions of the event stipulate that the ages of each team’s members must add up to at least 180 but the fact that Doncaster’s added up to 207 against the winners’ 189 obviously put it at some disadvantage.

Collingwood’s winning team was made up of Danny Hecker (43), Donna Smith (39), Keith Howden (66) and Justin Hanrahan (41). While Howden was clearly the oldest runner in the teams which were in contention, there is little doubt it was his presence which held the key to the contest. Howden is a multiple National Masters’ sprint champion and won the 100 metres at the World Championships in Finland in 2009.

While Doncaster’s first three runners gave it a clear lead at the final baton change, McConnell was unable to withstand the finishing burst of Hanrahan, 18 years his junior, who was a sprint medalist at the Australian Championships in Brisbane earlier in the year. While Doncaster Green certainly did the venue proud, its second team, Doncaster Gold, failed by only half a second to make the final field, which was made up of the three heat winners plus the three fastest losers.

Doncaster Gold -- Graham Ford (62), Tanya Simpson (44), Graham Walter (53) and Phil Rosevear (62) -- finished second in the opening heat and looked certain to qualify until the final heat, which saw the second, third and fourth placegetters all better their time.

While Doncaster has the reputation of being a ‘sprint venue’, the sad fact of life is that our sprinters are getting older and if we are going to get the trophy back, we are probably going to have to find a classy sprinter in the M35 or M40 age range. We would still be able to meet the age qualification and a couple of seconds over 200 metres may well make all the difference.

Travelling Matt strikes again.

Versatile Doncaster athlete Matt Scholes is beginning to accumulate an impressive collection of medals – and most of them are different to everyone else’s.

Scholes has made a habit in the past few years of going where he can win and then producing the performances necessary to justify his planning. Last year it was to Canada where he won the M40 division of the 800 metres at the Ontario Masters’ Championships held in Toronto.

And recently he’s been to New Zealand and come home with two more gold medals, this time from the NZ South Island Masters’ Games held in Nelson. Scholes was again successful in the 800 metres, in which he ran a creditable 2m 24.80s, and in the 1500 metres, in which he clocked 5m 19.06s.

Scholes, 41, got a bronze medal at the Oceania Masters’ Championships in Townsville in 2008 and notably scored a comfortable win in one of Doncaster venue’s feature events, the Christmas Handicap, last year. He has been on the sidelines with a foot injury for most of this year but is obviously back in form, having had two runs in the recent heats of the Doug Orr Memorial Half-Mile Championship and winning both of them.

While he’s unlikely to get under the handicapper’s guard again in this year’s Christmas Handicap, he’s likely to bob up unexpectedly and have a winning chance nearly anywhere else on the planet. But not in handicap events at Doncaster.

No wonder Christie hasn’t been around.

It doesn’t seem long ago that Christie Faulks, one of Doncaster’s best sprinters in the past decade, made a clean sweep of the sprints in the Women’s 40-44 age-group at the Victorian Championships. Faulks ran a meritorious 64.9 in winning her 400 and looked set for even bigger things but suffered a leg injury soon afterwards and dropped out of competition.

She has made an occasional visit to Doncaster in the interim, promising to come back to competition, but hasn’t managed to do so. But after looking at her newly established website it’s not difficult to work out why. Faulks, 51, and her daughter Tessa visited Kenya in 2009 and returned with wonderful stories of running in the famous Rift Valley, which is renowned worldwide as the ‘nursery’ which just keeps turning out champion distance runners.

Her relationship with Kenya had begun much earlier, however, when, in 1988, as a young teacher, she worked there with an international mission organization, teaching in a secondary girls’ boarding school. ‘I traveled to Kenya believing I would use my teaching skills and experience to help others,’ she said recently. ‘Ha..! I returned home much humbled. I had been the student – the girls, the school and the culture were my teachers.’

While 2009 was only her second visit to Kenya, Faulks has made numerous trips since and ultimately has launched SOSK (Skills, Opportunity, Survival in Kenya), a non-profit organization which funds programs to promote education for orphan and slum children and training for destitute women in Kenya.

Faulks has worked with a missionary family, a doctor and his wife, in the regional centre of Naivasha, in developing a support network for the countless women and children who are in dire need of assistance. Faulks describes Minalyn, the doctor’s wife, as ‘a ball of faith’. ‘She takes prostitutes, disabled women and the homeless into her home, feeds them and teaches them craft and sewing skills,’ she says. ‘The income from the items they make is returned to them as a weekly wage and the women, many of them HIV+, are able to support themselves for the first time in their lives.’

Another initiative has been to encourage five and six-year-olds to attend school by giving them a nutritious breakfast when they arrive. ‘Most of them were too weak to be able to sit up for the whole morning, so they couldn’t learn,’ she explains. ‘Since we’ve introduced the breakfast program there has been a dramatic drop in absenteeism and the opportunity is there for many more children to start an education.’

Faulks says her ‘ultimate dream’ is to secure sufficient sponsorship to allow SOSK to establish a training centre which would provide physical relief and protection, teach women income-producing skills and create a change in their outlook by stimulating accomplishment, pride and the development of strong ideals. We keep hoping we’ll see Christie back at the track sometime soon. But it seems she’s a bit busy. Further information is available from the SOSK website, http://www.sosk.org.au/

McConnell dominates in Adelaide

Versatile Doncaster athlete David McConnell has dominated the Men’s 55-59 age group of the Australian Masters’ Games held in Adelaide in early October.

McConnell, 59, contested six events and came home with five gold medals and a silver. Doncaster’s other representative at the meeting, Graham Ford, 62, won two gold medals, two silvers and a bronze.

McConnell made a clean sweep of the sprints, winning the 100 metres in 13.36 seconds, the 200 (27.18) and 400 (61.08). He also took the 400m hurdles in 74.37 and the Pentathlon, in which he won the two running events, the 200 (28.00) and 1500 (5:46.38). Another Victorian, David McLay, chased McConnell home in most of his wins but beat him in the long jump.

McConnell, who won Doncaster’s prestigious ‘Most Improved Athlete’ award at the end of last year, was also the star of last year’s Alice Springs Masters’ where he took the sprint treble, finishing with three gold and two silver medals.

Interestingly McConnell’s winning times were all faster on the grass in Alice Springs than on the synthetic ‘tartan’ track in Adelaide, which could add validity to the theory that most Masters’ athletes find age 58 or thereabouts to be ‘the crest of the hill’.

Ford turned in a meritorious performance in Adelaide, winning the 300 metres hurdles in a handy 51.81 seconds before taking the Pentathlon, in which he took top points in the 200, the long jump and the discus. In his other individual events Ford finished second in the long jump and the javelin and third in the 400.

World record at Doncaster

This year’s edition of Doncaster’s feature one-hour run event, The Sixty Minutes, has again provided a world record and two Victorian records.

Star distance runner Lavinia Petrie, 68, from Knox, ran 13.640km to add 234 metres to the world record she set in the same event three years ago. The world record was the seventh set in the eight years The Sixty Minutes has been held. Victorian records went to Petrie’s daughter Julie Norney, 43, and Rob Schwerkolt, 45. Norney took the W40-44 record with a distance of 15.101km while Schwerkolt recorded the longest distance in the field of 17 starters with 17.621km, which added just over 1km to the previous mark for the M45-49 age-group. Petrie said after the event that it was her best run in ages.

This is graphically evidenced by the fact that she ran her first 10,000 metres in 44m 04s -- ten seconds faster than the time she ran in winning over that distance at the recent World Championships in Sacramento, US. ‘I couldn’t believe I could run that time and just keep running,’ she said later. And not only did she ‘just keep running’ -- she got faster with her last ten laps being run 13 seconds faster than her first ten.

Schwerkolt is best known as a middle distance runner, having won this year’s World Championship 1500 metres and the Australian Championship at 800. He attacked from the start and was on schedule to break the Australian record for much of the journey before faded slightly in the last few laps to miss out by 138 metres. It was nevertheless a remarkable performance from a runner who obviously is at his best over two or four laps as opposed to 44.

Doncaster’s home-track representatives turned in sound performances. Graham Walter, 53, exceeded his expectations in running 13.245km while Deidre Black, 62, running in her first distance event, covered a creditable 9.056km.

Petrie and Schwerkolt are both likely to be back for Doncaster’s feature event of the year, The Landy Trophy, scheduled for February 20 next year.

Petrie has several Landy heat wins to her credit and is a former finalist while Schwerkolt will be making his Landy debut.

The Landy Trophy is run as a heats and final event from age-graded marks with heats of 200m and 1000m and a final of 400m, all on the one night.

Doncaster venue officials are particularly excited at the prospect of Schwerkolt’s appearance. ‘We’ve been after him for a long time,’ said venue manager Richard Trembath. ‘He’s a top line runner and will be almost unbeatable in his long heat. He’s only got to show any dash in his sprint heat to be a certain finalist and that would be great for the event.’

Rosevear lands Winter Series

The ever-reliable Phil Rosevear has outlasted his rivals to take first prize in Doncaster’s Winter Series, conducted over five weeks in August.

Rosevear is never far away in series events and only lost the equivalent event last year on a countback. This time he had a titanic struggle with Graham Ford, who was level on points going into the fourth round. Ford ultimately finished second ahead of David McConnell.

The battle for first female home also came down to the last round, with Katrina Philip (19) edging ahead of June Reeves (17) after the two had swapped places in the lead on several occasions during the competition.

This year’s series was based on estimated times – the ability of athletes to accurately predict the times they would run over distances varying from 200 metres to 800 metres.

Remarkably, Rosevear and Ford earned identical points in four of the five rounds with Rosevear earning four points to Ford’s two in Round 4 to give him success with 26 points to 24. McConnell was in third place all the way and eventually finished on 21, just ahead of Graham Walter and Katrina Philip, both on 19.

Rosevear’s ability to accurately estimate his times has endured over the years and has earned him the affectionate nickname ‘Phil the Clock’.

His success earned him a $60 voucher on Runners’ World plus a pair of socks and a VMA glass while Ford received a stopwatch valued at $60 and McConnell a $40 voucher. Philip won a $60 voucher on Motto Fashion, donated by Doncaster venue members John and Faye Browne.

Doncaster venue’s main focus during the next few weeks will be on the heats of the Doug Orr Memorial Half-Mile Championship, the final of which will be held on October 27, and preliminary trials for team places in the Barb Dalgleish Memorial Relay to be held at Coburg on November 10.

Doncaster gets boost at World Championships

The Landy Trophy, the flagship event of Doncaster Masters’ Athletics, has been given a boost by the results of the World Masters’ Athletics Championships held recently in Sacramento, US.

Five of this year’s Landy finalists went to Sacramento with four of them winning gold medals and the fifth getting a silver and a bronze. Australia finished second behind the US on the gold medals tally with 22, of which seven went to the 2011 Landy finalists and a further five to athletes who have contested the final in the past three years.

This year’s Landy winner, Hugh Coogan, 75, from Queensland, won three gold medals, in the 100, 200 and 400 metres, and a silver and a bronze in the relays.

Second placegetter Kathy Heagney, 60, won her 400 and was placed in both the 200 and 800 as well as getting gold in the 4 x 400 metres relay and silver in the 4 x 100.

Tasmanian Mick Stevenson, 70, fourth in The Landy, won the 300 metres hurdles and was second in the sprint hurdles as well as getting silver and bronze in the relays while the 2010 winner, Marge Allison, 66, from Queensland, won four gold medals, in the 400, the 300 metres hurdles and both relays, as well as being placed in her 200 and 800.

Another 2010 finalist, Lavinia Petrie, 67, won her 10,000 metres, while top NSW sprinter Peter Crombie, who was a Landy finalist in 2009, won gold in his 400 and 4 x 100 relay and silver in both the 200 individual and 4 x 400 relay.

Gianna Mogentale, 47, from NSW, who was fifth in the 2011 Landy final, finished her individual events with two fourths and a fifth but was a member of the winning team in the 4 x 400 metres relay while Andrew Watts, 55, won silver and bronze medals in his two relays.

Two other recent Landy contenders who distinguished themselves were Western Australian David Carr, 79, who won gold in his 800m and 2000m steeplechase, plus a silver and a bronze, and Bob Cozens, 75, from Houston, US, who finished second to Coogan in all three sprint events in his age-group.

Doncaster’s sole representative at the Championships, champion walker Andrew Jamieson, 65, again distinguished himself winning gold medals in the 5000 metres track walk and the 10km and 20km road walks, breaking world records in the latter two.

Jamieson walked the 10km in 50m 11.38s and the 20km in 1hr 42m 56.8s to take 29 seconds and 37 seconds respectively off the previous records, both of which were set by Gerhard Weidner of Germany in 1998.

World Masters Championships 2011 Results

Summary of Australian results  

Medal count by country  

Men's Events Complete  

Women's Events Complete  

A link to a variety of videos of 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m events - WMA 2011 Champs

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VENUE PROGRAM - January / February

Download Venue Program  

Jan 2	Jan 9	Jan 16	Jan 23	Jan 30
100m	300m (H)	80m	100m ##	100m
200m	60m	150m #	200m ##	250m #
500m #	200m @	400m @	1000m @	600m
2km/4km	1500m	1km/3km	4km	1km/3km
Feb 6	Feb 13	Feb 20	Feb 27
100m	200m @	The Landy	60m
300m	1000m @	Trophy Night	150m #
800m #	400m @		300m
1km/3km		(Entries Close 8 Feb.)	1200m

@ age graded events

** Handicap yourself ET

# Estimated time event

## Combined estimated time event

(H) Note a 300 hurdles will also be run if enough runners are interested, on nights where a 300 has been scheduled.

Please advise venue manager or duty manager prior to that night if interested.

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