Wellington club wins relay

Press, 11 September 1989, Page 21

Wellington club wins relay

By

GLENN HASZARD

The Wellington Harrier Club had its first Takahe to Akaroa relay win on Saturday, taking with it the 1989 Mobil New Zealand road relay men’s championship.

But it was not the first time for its last lap runner, Pat Meffan, who wore the colours of the winning men’s team, University of Canterbury, on the last lap in 1985. That was when the New Zealand championship relay was last held on the course. Wellington also finished second in the women’s relay, won by Owairaka (Auckland), was third in the junior men, second in the C grade and won the B grade relay.

It was the fiftieth anniversary of the relay, first held in 1935. There were no relay races during the four years of the Second World War.

When the relay was last an Open one, in 1985, two of the original relay runners of 1935 ran for University. They were Les Smith and Jim Gardner, but on Saturday none of the originals of 1935 were in the relay, though Clarrie Gordon, who competed with distinction for Presbyterian in 1935, was on hand with the batons he has made each year for the teams. The weather was drizzly throughout the course and made it difficult for drivers, course marshalls, and runners warming up for their laps, but it also made for fast times.

In the open men’s relay New Brighton was attempting its fourth suc-

cessive championship, but the pundits who had access to 10km times submitted by the teams had already singled out Wellington as the likely new champions. No fewer than 10 of its club runners had run under 31min for a 10km time trial in the weeks preceding the relay.

“I was always confident that we would win,” said Meffan after he brought his team home first.

On the first lap, from the Sign of the Takahe to Allandale, Greg Cameron (Hamilton) made the pace, with Rob Mulcahy (Brighton) running well to keep close behind him. Wellington’s Martin MacDonald held third comfortably from two young runners from Hill City and. New Zealand University, with Takapuna’s Dave Drummond in sixth. Grant McEwen took Brighton into the lead on the tough second lap from Allandale and up Gebbies Pass into Gebbies Valley as he went past Hamilton’s Tony Rogerson and built up a lead of 40s over Wellington, whose Liam Healey moved into second place. It was on the third lap that New Brighton lost the relay as Tim Crawford bridged the gap to Don Greig, then opened up what proved to be the winning break. Wellington

was never headed from then.

Greig reflected on his disappointing run yesterday by saying that he had felt that he was running all right until Crawford caught him. He had tried to stay with him but felt flat.

Greig ran in the New Zealand marathon trial in Hastings a few weeks ago and had to withdraw because of a leg injury. He said yesterday that because of that he had lost a week’s training. “I thought I’d be all right but I must have been flat. I was in the lead by 30s on my lap but by 3km they’d caught me. I should have been able to take 30s out of them,” he said.

On the last lap Renner faced the daunting task of trying to catch 2min on Wellington’s Pat Meffan, who is in good form. Two weeks ago he narrowly missed breaking an uphill lap record on the Wellington to Masterton relay. Renner did make up some ground but it was not enough. Phil Clode put Takapuna into third place with a record-breaking last lap in which he passed the Hamilton runner but he was too far behind Renner to be a threat for second place. Owairaka’s Cath Roberts took the fastest time among the women

on the first lap, setting the stage for the team to win the women’s open relay to repeat the performance on the same course in 1985. The team led for the first four laps but Linda Black was passed by Mary O’Connor (University) and Anne Hare (Wellington) on the fifth lap. At that stage University had every chance of winning the relay. It was left to youthful Pip Depree to hold on for University up the steep grind to Hilltop from Cooptown, and she did, but Owairaka’s Jane Hahn picked up a valuable 14s to keep her team in striking distance. So at Hilltop, University led from Owairaka, with Wellington a close third and Scottish fourth.

On the seventh lap Christine Munro passed University’s Bridget McKay to put Owairaka back into the lead, while Rose Gammie (Wellington) also passed McKay, setting a women’s lap record.

Helen Moros (Owairaka), who won the women’s marathon trial in Hastings to gain selection for the Commonwealth Games, poured on the pace over the last lap to take her team to victory, hotly pursued by Lee-Ann McPhillips (Wellington). Results page 26