Celebration For Kylie With Jayen 5km Win

By Brian Marantelli 5 August 2014

Kylie Harding scored her first win with the Victorian Cross Country League on Sunday at Woodlands Park when she raced away to take home the first prize of $500 in the 2^nd Jayen Engineering Handicap. After a successful track career Kylie gave away the sport, but after watching son Joel run with the VCCL for a season joined the long line of “I’m here anyway” supporters and decided to put on the “spikes” again. She quickly adjusted to the cross country style of racing with her best run before Sunday being a great third in last season’s Norm Charles Classic. Better suited to the shorter distance Kylie had a clear margin of fourteen seconds on her rivals at the finish.

Leon Brooks having another solid season was second, running over his least preferred distance. Hamish Adams was in fourth place inches behind his coach Mark Howard, always very competitive over the short courses. Julian Harris crept up the leader board with a personal best run of 20:25 to finish fifth just ahead of the fast finishing Shane Grund. Ash Snowden revisited the top ten for the first time since 2012 to claim seventh place. Next in, Fraser Murray and Gavan Muir crossed the line together with Fraser gaining a narrow victory over Gavan. Sean Quilty completed the top ten, leaving Cam Clayton next in and taking the novice award. Fastest times went to Michael Marantelli (16:05) and Shane Grund (16:21) with Corina Kapusta running 18:24 to take the female award.

The Victorian Cross Country League has always been very lucky to have a generous group of sponsors over the years and would like to thank Neil Lofthouse and Jayen Engineering for his sponsorship of the Woodlands race.

This week is the George Perdon Ten Miler (16,090m) at the Tea Gardens in Avondale Heights with a 10am start. The start is near the Canning Reserve football oval in Canning Road. Also the club has scheduled a sweepstakes race over the shorter distance of 6km.

Please note that the Presentation Night has been changed to the Bentleigh Club – runners please keep Saturday October 4^th free. Also as the season winds down any outstanding “Tootsie Lotto “ money should be paid to the social club.

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Photos courtesy of Leanne Baxter.

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