The Box Hill teams finished off a most successful season for the Club at the Australian Club Championships held in Canberra on Saturday 27 March 2004, with the men’s team finishing in second place and the women’s team improving significantly from last year to finish in fourth place.

This was the first time that the Box Hill men’s team has won a medal at the Australian Club Championships after many attempts and several fourth places. After winning State League, Division 1, Division 2 and Under 18 premierships this season, the men were not quite able to complete a clean sweep of victories, finishing just 18 points behind the Queensland University team who have won the Australian Club Championship for about 5 years in a row.

There were some great individual performances from our team members. David Featherston won his heat of the triple jump, the shot put, was second in the discus and then ran a great first let of the medley relay. Steven Hooker again showed his outstanding all-round talent by winning the first heats of both the 200 m and 400 m and finishing second in the high jump, while Mohamad Zeed won the second heat of the 200 m, won the first heat of the 200 m hurdles and ran two strong relay legs. Wonderful club spirit was shown by young athlete Patrick Oughtred, who stepped into the second heat of the 800 m at very short notice, ran gamely for third place in his heat and collected a silver medal as a member of the team.

While the women’s team did not have as many stars, there was also great team spirit amongst the competitors which meant that we were able to fill all the events and although the team was 21 points behind third place, we were only 28 points from winning the competition. Highlights included Rosie Ditton competing strongly against Tatiana Grigorieva in the pole vault (and winning the competition), Kate Winckworth discovering a hidden talent in the 800 m to win the second heat and young athletes Jennifer Chan and Veronica Kirby agreeing to throw the javelin to score valuable points for the team. Sarah Quinn showed great club spirit to compete in several events despite just having discovered that she was required to take part in a re-run of the Under 18 400 m hurdles final at the National Youth Championships the following morning.

Many thanks to Julie Milner and Chris O’Connor who travelled to Canberra to manage the teams. It was also great to have the support of so many parents and junior athletes in Canberra for the National Youth Championships.

While the results from this year were fantastic (and suitably celebrated afterwards), the challenge has been set for next year to improve on these performances and show that we really are the best club in Australia. We look forward with anticipation to the next Australian Club Championships in March 2005.

Team Results

Men

1 University of Qld 321
2 Box Hill                 303
3 North Launceston 261
4 Sydney University 261
5 Western Districts 258
6 Illawong                 209

Women

1 University of Qld 299
2 Bankstown        294
3 Hills District        290
4 Box Hill                 269
5 North Launceston 218
6 Illawong                 191
7 Tea Tree Gully 190