Shanghai running – cross country June 2015

Even after all the exertions of sports day, there was simply no stopping the Wellington athletes last weekend. This time our runners were out to compete in the last cross-country race of the year. A 5-kilometer off road course, set in the beautiful Binjiang Park in north Pudong was the race destination. A somewhat depleted team attended the event with many of our runners heavily involved in Pippin rehearsals. However, Wellington was still able to field our usual impressive team of athletes at the competition. After a short race briefing and a group warm up the races were ready to begin. After the mass start, the course wound it’s way around the park offering various surfaces to run on, including some large boulders to cross the river. The Wellington athletes again showed what a dominant force they are when it comes to these kinds of events: In the under 16 boys, Max Dyckerhoff proved what an outstanding runner he is by taking first place with an dominant run of under 18 minutes, Max was closely followed over the line by Nathan Stassin, who has already won this event a number of times over the last year, we fully expect to see a real battle between Max and Nathan when we return to school after the holiday. An equally impressive 6th place was taken by James Lo who, on his first outing as a cross-country runner performed brilliantly on the day. The under 13 boys race made for a fantastic Dyckerhoff one/two with Alex taking the first place in his age group. Alex made it look easy has he coasted over the line a long way clear of his nearest rival. Langa Nindi, who is fast becoming a force to be reckoned with over the 5-kilometer distance, dominated the girls under 15 race in impressive time. In the under 13s girls race, Jade Sedgewick pulled out all the stops to bring home a fantastic third place, only missing out on the number two position by five seconds, we have great expectations for Jade when next seasons begins again in September. Of course we should mention both Mr. Sleep and Mr. Hambling who competed in the 10-kilometer race, the timing apparatus must have been faulty as we have no times for them but they both managed to complete the race in what would probably have been Olympic standard times if only the time had been recorded.