Julian has Tunnel Vision at Mullum Mullum, Marcus turns the tide along the Yarra, Moran Breaks the Trend

By Brian Marantelli 19 September 2019

Julian Harris, competing at Mullum Mullum, returned to the winners list in race eighteen of the Victorian Cross Country League season. Julian defeated Brigitte Humphrey, running at Albert Park in the Virtual Sealed Handicap, by three seconds with Adina Morrow (Lalor) in third place. Julian, although a winner of five events previously, had not been victorious since June last year when he won his second Caruana Classic at Woodlands. Shane Thiele running at Jubilee Way South Australia, shattered the local course record running the fastest time of the day with a run of 17:04.

The Victorian Cross Country League joined forces with Athletic Victoria at Burnley for race nineteen of the season with a half marathon along the banks of the Yarra River. With numbers down for the endurance event at the tail end of the long season the Club was only able to gather together one complete team, division three. The team of Michael Marantelli, Alex Bacalja, Matt Grant and Oscar Robinson were able to win the division clearly whilst their main rivals, Mornington Peninsula, struggled with many of their better athletes not competing. The sealed handicap section of the event went to Marcus Boxall from Malvern Harriers. After running twenty one kilometres Marcus had the margin of only three seconds (about ten metres) to spare over Brigitte Humphrey with Irene James in third place. The distance held no fears for Marcus as, amongst his six VCCL wins, he has a win in the club’s longest race, The George Perdon 10 mile Memorial.

After a frustrating run of placings Tony Moran scored a most deserved win in race twenty of the VCCL season. Tony’s results this winter include four seconds but on Saturday morning, running at Maribyrnong, Tony ran 17:29 in the parkrun sealed handicap to record his tenth win with the VCCL. Tony held a four second margin over Irene James with Luke Critchley in third place. Irene competed at Frog Hollow and Luke at Sunbury. Fastest time was recorded by Matt Grant (17:05) at Coburg.

This Saturday morning the final event in the Athletics Victoria points competition will be conducted around the Tan with a start time 9am. The Tan relays, the most popular event on the AV calendar, will start opposite the Swan Street Bridge, parking is difficult to find, so please leave ample time. Currently the VCCL division three and six teams top the table in their sections. The VCCL are hoping for maximum attendance as we have also entered teams in division seven, over 40s and women’s.

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