Oceania Championships Day 3 Review: Distance Dominates The Day
Published Thu 27 Jun 2019
Despite warm conditions, the women distance runners dominated on day three of the 2019 Oceania Athletics Championships being held in Townsville. In search of world championships qualifiers Sinead Diver (10,000m) and Paige Campbell (steeplechase) made good attempts.
Early in the program, national steeplechase champion, Paige Campbell lined up for her second race at the championships following the 5000m two days prior. After a couple of laps she started to move away from the pack, but surprisingly she was not able to shake Georgia Winkcup. The pace picked up but still Winkcup was intouch and over the last lap she narrowed the gap and in a sprint to the line she fell just 0.11 seconds short of passing Paige who won in 9:46.40, a fraction outside her PB set in March. Paige can probably thank Winkcup for pushing her to the quick time. The performance of Georgia Winkcup was amazing as her time of 9:46.51 was a 29.63 second PB and lifted her from 24th to 8th Australian all-time.
Campbell was pleased with her run.
“Yes it was good, really good. I thought my hurdling was really good today.” It has set her up a launching pad into Europe which includes the World University Games.
“I can really build on that.”
Campbell paid tribute to Winkcup’s run.
“The 5000m took a little bit out of me, but kudos to Georgia it was an amazing run.”
National 800m champion, Catriona Bisset, felt she was a little too casual on the first lap but strode home easily to take the win in 2:02.16 ahead of 1:59 New Zealander Angela Petty (2:03.54) and Morgan Mitchell (2:05.02).
“It felt quite good and comfortable. I was able to pick up on the last 200m which is always a good sign,” said Bisset.
“I have built a bit of a reputation now for leading, so I had a strong suspicion that the lead wouldn’t be attacked, so I just did what I had to do to win.”
She also explained that the reason she had such a late start to her summer season in 2018/19 was due to some ‘hot spots’ which restricted her training.
“I am training better than I have ever done before and it has been extremely consistent. It took me a few races to get my rhythm but now I am able to cash in on all of that training.”
The small field in the women’s 10,000m was a very high standard and was a rematch of the Zatopek podium - Sinead Diver, Ellie Pashley and Emily Brichacek. On that occasion Diver missed the world championships standard by less than one second, so the obvious target for today was 31:50.00. Pashley had the standard locked away having run 31:43.51 in May.
For the first 5000m of the race, Diver and Pashley worked together with Brichacek a constant 20 metres behind. Diver and Pashley were running well on the pace required (for 31:50.00) until nearing 5000m to go when they started to slip. Over the last few laps, Diver pulled away from Pashley and Brichacek dropping well back. Diver stopped the clock at 32:25.86, with Pashley recording 32:29.08 and Brichacek 33:23.45.
“It felt good for the first 5k and got pretty hard towards the end,” said Diver.
“I may have under-estimate the heat a little bit. I haven’t done any track work for this event.”
Pashley also found the heat a challenge.
“We were umming and ahing before the race as to whether we would run the qualifier due to the heat. At the start it didn’t feel too bad so we went for it, which made for a pretty painful second half. We didn’t get the time unfortunately, but that’s ok. It was an enjoyable race for the first half.
For Pashley the race had less importance.
“Luckily I was able to go overseas and get the qualifying time which took the pressure off.”
This year she has smashed her PBs from 10,000m to marathon.
“I have been training consistently for a few years now which has built up my mileage, but I just keep working hard and training.”
On show in the men’s steeplechase was the growing depth in the event, including Max Stevens, Ben Buckingham and Matthew Clarke.
“We had a plan to take a lap each and set it up, trying to make it an 8:40 race,” said eventual winner Buckingham. “I ended up at the front with two laps to go and got to the water jump and pushed on from there. It was a long way to go 600m out.
He held on for the win in 8:41.15, ahead of national champion Max Stevens (8:43.22) and Clarke (8:45.14).
Buckingham has had a fantastic five months setting PBs galore. How does her account for the success?
“A combination of 12 months of consistency and not being injured.”
Another strong event in Australia is the women’s 400m hurdles and in Townsville we saw another athlete make progression. Sara Klein has had a strong year commencing with a PB of 57.99. Today was the fourth revision of her best reducing it to 56.07 in taking the win over a strong field. Unfortunately she just missed the Doha World championships standard of 56.00. Initially it was thought she had the standard when the clock registered 55.76.
Klein defeated the Doha bound Sarah Carli who ran 56.72, while the third Australian Gen Cowie was fifth in 58.50.
Other performances in brief:
- National 400m champions Steven Solomon and Bendere Oboya were comfortable winners in the their favoured events with times of 52.76 and 46.12 respectively.
- Josh Ralph won a tactical 800m in 1:49.34 ahead of teammate Mason Cohen in 1:49.77.
- A solid performance by national shot put champion Damien Birkenhead placing second in with a distance of 19.55m, behind the winner NZ's Jack Gill (20.75m).
David Tarbotton for Athletics Australia
