Big field for Rotorua marathon

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 60

Big field for Rotorua marathon

By

JOHN DREW

A large contingent of Canterbury marathon runners, will contest the annual Fletcher marathon of 26.2 miles round Lake Rotorua today. They are led by Mel Radcliffe, of New Brighton, who won last year’s event. He is supported by 27 other Canterbury marathoners. Today’s event is by far the largest marathon held in New Zealand with a total of 2009 registered entrants. The entry for the race is nearly double that of last year. The strongest competition for Radcliffe could come from Steve Sobaje, who was the first Hawaiian home in the big Honolulu marathon last December.

The Fletcher is the sister marathon of the Honolulu event and each year the home country winner is sponsored on a reciprocal basis. A record of 102 women runners have entered today, of whom about 50 are veteran (over 35) runners. The top woman contestant is Beverley Shingles, a mother of three, who took first woman’s placing in the Rotorua Fletcher of 1976 in 2hrs 47 mins. The Canterbury representatives include two husband and wife teams, Don and Patricia Cameron and Frank and Sally Aplin. The New Zealand doyen of ultra-distance men over 60, Tom Bain, aged 66, seems sure to take the prize in this age group. Overseas runners include a strong contingent from Honolulu, Alaska, Australia and Singapore.