Tarin Nevin broke through for her first NSWAL victory at the first ever staging of the Dandaloo gift. The 300m was reduced to a 250m event due to the state of the track but the excitement at the end of the race was certainly not reduced with family and squad members celebrating Tarin’s wonderful victory of 47m.
Lauren Boden yesterday produced a scintillatiing final 40m to run over the top of race favourite Heidi McTernan to collect the $1100 cheque and sash.
Running from 2.5m (last year 3.25m) Lauren ran a very fast 13.70 seconds to claim victory by about 1m. Training partner Ramona Casey continued her great form to finish 3rd with Tarin Nevin also making her first final to finish 6th.
The other top story of the day was Melissa Breen running her second Commonwealth Games qualifier in the 100m. Despite finishing off a huge 2 weeks of training Melissa took advantage of the great conditions to run 11.48 (1.9w) which is another B qualifier. After running 11.46 on the 18th December this results shows some real consistency and she will be hoping for even quicker come Nationals in April. In the mean time Melissa plans to “have some fun” and enjoy racing during the domestic grand Prix meets at Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
In other results Grant Billingham celebrated is move to Canberra with a win in the Novice 120m and also finished 5th in the Men’s Gift final, 2nd in the skins and 3rd in the Backmarkers. Coach MattyB also managed to finish 4th in the Final.
Luke Storta finished 4th in the 70m and Charlie Rutter also made it to the final.
Charlie’s breathrough moment came at the end of the program when he broke through for his first sash taking out the Open Skins events. Taking on most the squad including Jesse, Grant, Jaryd, Luke and Tarin the old man showed the young pup a clean pair of heels and they couldn’t run him down.
Jaryd Cowley ran a much improved race in the 300m finishing second in a great time of 32.79. Jesse and Tom were on his tail finishing 4th and 5th. Kevin also did well to make it through to the final.
Squad Results from the Canberra Gift
Best Results
Lauren Boden 120m Women’s Gift winner
Grant Billingham 120m Novice winner
Canberra Gift Squad Winnings: $2625
Yearly Squad Winnings: $17010
Total Squad Sashes for 2009/10: 10
Individual Money Winners
Luke Storta $8865
Ramona Casey $2850
Lauren Boden $1850
Stephen Sheppard $700
Melissa Breen $500
Patrick Elliott $455
Derek Collinge $290
MattyB $260
Michael Rutter $225
Jaryd Cowley $180
Jesse Matthews $105
Tom Burbidge $65
Kevin Matthews $40
Individual Results (money earning results only)
Mondo Track, Tailwind, warm conditions. Rain after heats and wind drop.
Stephen Sheppard has broken the drought in a big way with a victory in the 70m at the Northcote Gift. After winning only $210 in 4 years of running in the NSWAL until his Novice victory at the Queanbeyan Gift Sheppard has collected his first sash in his first ever meet with the VAL.
Running off 5m Sheppard won his heat, semi and Final to take the $300 first prize in the 70m. Later in the program Stephen also made the final of the main 100m Northcote Gift. Runnning of the novice 6m mark he finished a very respectable 6th in the final.
Fellow squad member Derek Collinge went within a whisker of taken out the 400m event finishing 2nd of 15m. Derek also made it through to the semi final of the 100m Gift.
MattyB DEPT. (MBD) 