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| photos by photoCREAGHphy |
Forty Napier Harriers took to the streets of Taradale on Saturday afternoon to contest the 73rd edition of the Louise Sweeney Memorial Shield relay. Racing in teams of five, the relay started from the club rooms in Symons Lane and headed out to Puketapu, through to Puketitiri Road and back through Park Island and Greenmeadows, finishing the 20.6km circuit back at the club rooms.
The first leg saw Steve Charles open up a commanding lead heading into the change over 34 seconds ahead of John Craven with a further minute back to the chasing pack. Leg two saw some major changes with Craven's team mate Devon Beckman running fastest time for the leg and taking his team into the lead, a position they never surrendered. Georgia Creagh ran the second fastest time, taking her team into second but the big move came from Kane Elms who ran his team from seventh at the change through to fourth, just behind Fraser Pearce who had taken over from Charles.
Evan Ward took over from Elms and ran the fastest time for the third leg, giving his team a glimmer of hope as they ran through to second, but were still 90 seconds down on the lead runner, Chris Wong. Creagh had tagged Jodi Nagel who ran strongly enough to put another 20 seconds on the fourth placed team runner Shayna Heywood as the teams headed onto the longest leg up Puketitiri Rd and into Park Island.
The 1 minute 35 sec lead Niall McCormack took into the fourth leg was serioulsy reduced as the teams headed into the final changeover with Brendan Speakman powering up and over the hill and handing over to Sophie Rose just 7 seconds behind McCormack's runner Jack Smidt. Speakman's run was bettered only by his elder brother, Eric, whose fastest leg could only get his team up from eigth to seventh. Toa Elphick-Iaveta, running on for Nagel also took time out of the lead team, but were still well off the pace, with Heywood's team mate Eric Phimister coming through in fourth.
Jack Smidt had possibly the best run of the day on the final leg. Running on from McCormack, Smidt ran the 4.5km final leg 2 min 47 sec quicker than Rose to anchor his teams victory. Rose held on for second, 49 sec clear of the fast finishing Jason Pearson who brought his team from fourth through to third.
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