by Scott McTaggart
My trip to Jena began early Friday morning. I managed to get on one of the last flights from Canberra to Melbourne to meet up with other members of the team before I embarked on my first overseas trip representing Australia. I was excited and eagerly looking forward to arriving in Europe.
We spent the first couple of days after arriving in Europe at St Gallen, a pleasant little town in Switzerland. In St Gallen we were able to relax and get over the jet-lag while enjoying some sightseeing and a chance to see snow in the middle of March. The highlight of the stay there was a trip to Mount Santis where we rode a Gondola to the summit.
After our short training camp in St Gallen we made our way across to
Jena, Germany for the Championships. The 12km course consisted
of 6 laps of 2km. The construction of three grass mounds on
the course, one of which was followed by 30 metres of soft sand and tight
curves of soft and slightly uneven grass made it a deceptively hard course.
The race didn't really go according to plan. I did not get a good start and ended up near the back of the pack after the first 200m. I moved through the pack over the first three laps but found by 6 km my legs were very tired and facing another 6km on this course was going to be very tough. I fell back through the pack and finished in 90th place. I was very disappointed with my performance, as it did not reflect my pre-race performance or indicate the sort of result that I had expected to deliver. However, I did learn a lot from the trip and will approach my next overseas competition much wiser as a result of the experience.
I completed my trip with a week in Milan catching up with friends. The trip to Venice and the delicious home cooked Italian meals were most appreciated.
I would like to thank the ACT Government, ACT Athletics and North Canberra
Athletics Club for the subsidy of my trip to Jena. The grant
was much appreciated as it made affording the trip that much easier.
John Harding, a life member of both North Canberra and ACT Athletics, has
been selected to carry the Olympic Torch at 5.51pm on Wednesday 6th September
along Yamba Drive at Farrer. The Torch Relay rules say that you cannot
run with John for the 400m he has been allocated, though you can run along
the bike path and footpath adjacent to the road.
We hope that the presentation of the $1000 cheque for our Athletics Australia club award can be made soon after John's leg of the relay. AA is currently organising publicity for the award, and we will keep you posted via email and on the North Canberra website of further details as soon as they become available. In any event, we hope to see a big turnout to cheer on our club member who certainly deserves the honour of carrying the torch.
A map of the route taken by the torch, with an arrow to the approximate
location of John's leg, is shown below. John has warned that it's likely to be one of the slowest "runs" he'll
ever do. As he only gets to run 400 metres, he's going to make it
last as long as he can.
A little over a year since Chris Cook's death and members may have noticed that his son, (now) 14 year old Daniel Cook is no longer a regular athletics competitor. Rest assured Dan is not veging out in front of the TV or computer, rather he is training hard with the AIS junior road cycling squad.
The AIS talent identification team came to Queanbeyan High School last year and singled out Dan as having an aptitude for the sport (wouldn't Chris have been bursting with pride!). While Dan loves his running, he decided to give the cycling program a go, and is enjoying it and performing well. Chris's wife Amelie is giving Dan all the support possible: driving from Queanbeyan to Canberra three times a week for the 6am training sessions (and getting in an hour plus walk in the cold and dark while waiting for Dan) and there's training and races (sometimes far afield) on the weekend. Amelie has made sure Dan has the required gear eg made to measure bike, all the clothes required for cycling in minus 5 degrees etc.
As many will be aware and others can imagine, cycling is an expensive sport. In Chris's memory, various people have suggested giving Amelie an unsolicited helping hand with Dan's cycling expenses. While many fund raising options were bandied about we've settled on what we think is the most efficient (and something that will happen rather than just be talked about). An account has been opened at the Commonwealth Bank with myself and Phil Aungles as authorised operators. People can support Dan by making a deposit directly into the account. The account details are given at the end of this article. We'll publicise the fund raising account in the obvious ways eg Canberra runner, direct emails to likely donors etc. (any other ideas?). We'll keep the account open for a few months, then close off and publicise the result and hand the funds over to Amelie in a suitable public forum (eg at a cross country club event).
The account details are summarised below. It doesn't matter how small individual donations are, they all add up to support for Dan and Amelie in the absence of Chris. If you have any queries or suggestions please give me (H: 6247 0632, W:6252 5336) or Phil Aungles (H: 6285 2270) a call.
"Daniel Cook Cycling Fund"
Commonwealth Bank branch & account number: 2913 10374852
Simply fill out a green deposit slip at any branch of the Commonwealth
Bank
Thanks
I missed a couple of results from the Pacific School Games in the last newsletter. Patrick Cape did a PB of 11.37m in the 13 yrs boys triple jump. Patrick was rather impressed by the size of one of his 13year old opponents - 6'4"! Scott Tomlinson came 6th in his heat of the 800m in 2:16.86, and 10th in the final of the 1500m in 4:45.21.
With just two pointscore races of the cross country season left, Graham Burke has a clear lead in our distance runner of the year contest. Graham is on 86 points, ahead of David Osmond on 76 and Peter Haynes on 73.
A number of our athletes were selected in ACT teams to compete in the Australian Cross Country Championships being held in Melbourne on the 5th August - Kathy Southgate (open), Ruth Kennedy (U20), Marni Ponton (U18), Scott McTaggart (open), David Osmond (reserve, open). Competing in the All Schools championships are: Scott Tomlinson, Patrick Cape, Michael Daly, Marnie Ponton , Katira Davis and Holly Smith (secondary), Anne Southgate, Luke Davis and Hillory Davis (primary). Michele Davis is coach.
The Harding family had a successful orienteering campaign over the school
holidays. Heather Harding is the W12 Australian and Asia-Pacific
champion. Mathew Harding is the Australian resident champion for
his age group, and the Asia-Pacific short-course champion. Congratulations
Heather and Patrick.
There are also positions in Stadium Australia, working in the Print Distribution area (delivering results to the media).
The Paralympics also has some 25 positions still to be filled.
If anyone is interested in becoming a volunteer, then give me a call on
(6254 2201 - home), or drop me a line by email at linda.butler@anu.edu.au.
I'll fill you in on more details and pass your contact information onto
Michael.
