At the NSW Club Championships a record number of 79 athletes competed for Sydney University Athletics Club (SUAC) over the two days of competition at the Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre.
SUAC took out both the men’s and women’s events by huge margins. For the men it was the 9th consecutive state title and the 7th consecutive win for the women.
The standout performances on the weekend came from Rohan Browning in the 200 and Annie Rubie in the 400m. Browning ran the fastest 200 in Australia this season running a phenomenal 20.54 for the distance, unfortunately for Browning the wind gauge was not in his favour recording a win of 2.9 m/s.
Regardless, the run sees Browning in a great position to qualify at both 100m and 200m for the Commonwealth Games.
Annie Rubie was supreme in the 400m, opening her account for the season with a 52.84, which is very slick running first up. Rubie will concentrate on being selected for the 400m and 4x400m for the Commonwealth Games. Jenny Blundell was crowned the NSW Champion in the 5000m with Lara Hamilton taking the silver in the same event. Hamilton was also the winner of the NSW Junior 5000m Champion recording a personal best over the distance.
In other events Shelly Jenneke won the 100 hurdles in dominant fashion as well as competing in 5 other events for the club over the weekend, Katrina Blackett had a huge throw in the Javelin for the win, Angus Armstrong won the Pole Vault with a leap of 5.15, Aiden Harvey won the shot put, youngster Obbsa Youssouf got the win the men’s 800m, both Beth Croft and Joe Burgess won the steeple with Burgess getting another gold in the 1500m, Maddy Bergfield was victorious in the discus and SUAC also recorded the win in both the men’s and women’s 4×100.
Silver medal performances came from Matt Mountfort (shot), Gen Cowie (400 h), Larissa Pasternatsky (200), Jenny Blundell (5000), Josiah Becker (Decathlon) and Brianna Gibson ( javelin).
Bronze medal performances came from Maddy Bergfield (shot), Matt Mountfort (hammer), Joanna Cubis (800), Elliot Lang ( javelin), James Ellis (110 hurdles) and Stephen Sanday (1500).
Quite pleasingly there were a large number of athletes who recorded personal bests over the weekend. They included Sam Jensen (pole vault), Matt Wood (throws), Michelle Jenneke (throws), Nick Chatters (discus), Catherine D’Sooouza (200), Ben Qui (200), James Healey (1500) and Ben Liddy, Luke Schofield, Jayden Scholfield (5000).
SUAC athletes will next compete at the Treloar Shield 6 on Saturday December 16th.