Well done to all our athletes and coaches who provided us with a solid start to our AVSL season. On a cool day at Aberfeldie, we had some wonderful performances.
After Round 1 our Club is sitting 6th on the Premier Division ladder, behind Diamond Valley, Eaglehawk, Essendon, Glenhuntly and Box Hill. We were only 1232 points behind Box Hill.
Initially it appeared to be a ‘quiet’ round, but this was deceiving as at the end of the day there were some very big scores. We scored 35 033 points, which was higher than our average domestic round score of 31 742 per round last year. We had 61 athletes, compared to an average of 51 last season and we covered 96 events, just 2 less from last year’s average. The first heat of the Men’s 3000m had 11 Western Athletics athletes in it and we took 8 of the first 10 placings. While on duty at TJ the official said to me, ‘Is this the Western Athletics heat?’ This was very rewarding as back in 2020 it felt like nearly every heat was an Essendon heat.
We had 12 athletes do three or more events, 21 who did two events and 28 who did one event. As we know we could improve our position if more athletes are able to do more than one event per round.
A big welcome to the Wes Aths AVSL T&F Team to: Tracy Colbert, Amy Gardiner, Maddie Hall, Gracie McKenzie, Zayd Al Sayd, Alex Cameron-Smith, Abdi Haji Ali and Alex Joseph. Welcome back also to the track for Daniel Sneyders.
Our top ten points scorers were: Stan 1446, Lucy 1169, Alan 1055, Pascal 942, Wayne 932, Armeet 902, Jacob 844, Holly 810, Jackson 789 & Janice 778.
Thank-you to Sarah, Lucy, Holly, Amy, Brenda, Janice, Tracy, Jacob, Wayne, Alan, Daniel S & Stan for competing in three scoring events, and Gracie, Ruby, Ruth, Niharika, Summer, Tahnee, Maddy, Charli, Mandy, Cheryl, Brandon, Pascal, Jackson, Alex, Ethan S, Matthew, Jeeva, Armeet, Steven, Emerson & Mal for competing in two scoring events.
We had some impressive performances across the State Age Groups: Our Men’s Open came 1st, MU18 2nd, W40+ 5th and M40+ 6th.
State Age Group Top 3 individual performances:
MOP – Robert Weitsz 1st 800m, Zayd Al Sayd 1st 3000m, Brayden Portelli 2nd 200m, Abdi Haji Ali 2nd 3000m, Endale Mekonnen 3rd 200m, Kirk Shanahan 3rd 800m and Cody Shanahan 3rd 3000m.
FOP – Janae Mackrell 1st 3000m
M20 – Ethan Reilly 1st 800m
F20 – Jade Chitty 1st 3km Walk & Sarah McInerney 2nd 200m.
M18 – Pascal Basioni 1st 200m, Aiden Muscat 2nd 3000m & Jackson Wright 3rd 800m.
M16 - Armeet Dhaliwal 1st 3000m
M40+ - Stan Peska 1st Hammer, Stan Peska 2nd Shot Put, Alan Baldry 2nd 800m, Stan Peska 3rd Javelin, Alan Baldry 3rd Triple Jump and Alistair McDonald 3rd 3000m.
F40+ - Janice Hodgart 3rd 800m.
Let me know if you get a PB at AVSL and I will publish it. Congratulations to the following athletes on their PBs: Pascal, Jacob, Alex x2, Helen, Liam M, Aiden, Gracie, Zayd, Abdi, Armeet, Brandon, Mandy, Ethan R, Steven and Ethan S.
Check our website for Club Records: https://www.westernathletics. com.au/club/achievements/records
A big thank you to Nicola McInerney, John Papworth and Jo Francken for completing two Club Duty timeslots. Thanks also to Jenny Arnold, Ben Mudie, Cath Cleveland Tracy Colbert, Janae Mackrell, Graham Shaw, Crystal Brown and Peter Cashin for helping with our Triple Jump & Shot Put Duties. Thanks to Ben Mudie, Phil Dunstone & Jill Joseph for lap scoring the 3000m and to Julie Chitty for lap scoring the 3km Walk. A special shout out to Tracy Colbert. It was Tracy’s first time with our Club and she is already helping, as well as competing in 3 events.
