Australian Club Championships
Hobart
Saturday 19 January 2008

AUSTRALIAN CHAMPIONS

On one of the most successful days on the long and illustrious history of the Box Hill Athletic Club, both the men's and women's teams won the Australian Club Championship, held at the Domain Athletic Centre in Hobart on Saturday 19th January 2008.

In the 10 years since the inception of the Australian Club Championships, the Club has sent teams to compete in the event every year, in that time winning just a single title - by the men's team in 2005 - as well as several silver and bronze medals. This year the Championships were held in Hobart on the day after the Briggs Athletic Classic and with a number of Box Hill athletes competing in this event, we were hopeful of filling strong teams and challenging for the title, however due to some late withdrawals from the women's team, we were left with just 8 women to fill all the events, while we had 13 men to cover the same range of events.

Strong performances from the men's middle distance runners and sprinters meant that the team was able to gradually pull away from the other 4 teams in a very close competition to be 8 points ahead at half way and then 16 points in front of the second team at the end of the competition.

In a remarkable effort by the women's team with all members having to compete in several events, they were able to match the efforts of the men to pull of a surprise win, scoring exactly the same number of points as the men (317). After several second places in these championships, this was a fantastic result and a wonderful example of the true Box Hill spirit that the Club has displayed over the past 75 years.

To cap of a most successful weekend for the Club, the men's 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams also took out the gold medal in the Australian Relay Championships held in conjunction with the Briggs Track Classic on Friday night.

Highlights

Some of the highlights from the weekend were:

The men's 4x100 m relay team starting off the meeting with a convincing win

Kate Ackland running a brilliant 100 m to win the first heat followed by a great run by Hannah Turnbull for second place in the second heat to put the women's team into the lead

Fast runs by Matthew Coloe and Daniel Clark to both finish second in their heats of the 800 after both running PB's the previous night in the 1500

Rhett Medford and Joshua Ross convincingly winning both heats of the 200 m

All four 3000 m runners - Chris Hamer, Steve Dinneen, Rachel Johnson and Margie Conley dominating their races to claim maximum points and clearly dominate the opposition

Angela Phillips winning the javelin and finishing second in the shot put

Dora Spathis winning the high jump and finishing second in the long jump and 200 m hurdles - the first time that she had ever run the event

Chris Rutty and Sam Scherma finishing second in both heats of both the shot put and discus

Hannah Turnbull winning her heat of the long jump

Vivienne Lee convincing winning her 200 m hurdles heat

Anna Carrig and Vivienne Lee competing in the high jump and shot put to score valuable points - despite being complete novices at these events

David Featherston competing in the triple jump and high jump, despite having a torn hamstring

The wonderful comaradarie and club spirit shown by team members and the large group of supporters who travelled to Hobart to support the team

Results

For a full list of performances by Box Hill Athletes and the final team scores - please click on the following link:

Australian Club Championship Results and Team Scores.

Photos