OLYMPIAN Collis Birmingham helped polish off his preparations for the European athletics season with the fastest time in state relays at the weekend.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Birmingham formed a Ballarat super team with Australian 1500m record-holder Ryan Gregson, Australian 5000m and 10,000m champion Brett Robinson, running legend Steve Moneghetti, world
junior cross-country athlete Stewart McSweyn and in-form distance runner Nick Van Raaphorst.
They blitzed the men’s premier division in Athletics Victoria’s XCR round one, drawing a strong crowd to
Jells Park in Melbourne’s south-east.
Birmingham clocked 17 minutes, 40 seconds for his six-kilometre leg, with Gregson (17:49), Robinson (17:53) and McSweyn (17:56) rounding out the four fastest.
Their combined time of one hour, 49 minutes, 55 seconds – with Van Raaphorst (19:03) and Moneghetti (19:34) – was clear ahead of second-placed Knox’s 1:55:09, which featured Olympian Jeff Riseley.
The course changes most years, but the Ballarat Regional Athletic Centre team’s time is the fastest at Jells Park for the XCR cross-country relay since 2010, when Glenhuntly clocked 1:49:11.
McSweyn led out and was the first to make a change – and Ballarat remained in the lead up until to that point.
BRAC had tough selection issues ahead of the event and elected to run Moneghetti, who is eligible for the men’s over-50 category, with young guns Jesse Fullerton and Ryan Norman dropped back to bolster the Ballarat men’s under-20 team.
The three-strong Ballarat under-20 team also captured a win, with Norman (20:17), Jack Birmingham (20:37) and Fullerton (19:51) posting a combined time of 1:00:45.
Ballarat’s over-40 men (Andrew Lang, Jamie Maher and Paul Burge) and over-50 men (Steve Linane, Matt Gibney, Alistair Ham) were runners-up in their 3x6km events.
Harry Sharp was a standout individual performer in the men’s under-14 3x3km.
He impressed with a time of 11:11.
melanie.whelan@fairfaxmedia.com.au