New Editorial Email address: jimod@actewagl.net.au

Page 22 — December VetrunnerRecord breaker. Great performaceshave seen Sharon Gibbins take theW45 Australian record in the hammer.Of those five new records two camefrom Rad Leovic plus another that heestablished, not bad for someone whohas recently turned 75. Rad’s first twomarks came in the sprints, both the 100and 200m. In the 100m Rad clocked 17.2to beat Gordon Boag’s 17.4 set back in1994. It was another 1994 record thathe broke in the 200m, this time it wasHal Dalheim’s 38.9 with Rad running a36.8. Then later in the meet in the 80mhurdles Rad ran a 15.6 to establish aM75 age group record.Also breaking more than one recordat the meet was Sharon Gibbins.Sharon, who has also moved into thehigher age group of W45 has beenbreaking at least one record every timeshe competes. She broke two of TrishThomas’ long standing marks in theheavy weight and discus. In the heavyweight Sharon got in a top throw withher 13.11 shattering Trish’s 1995 markof 9.50. Then in the discus Sharon gotone out to 30.82 again breaking Trish’s1991 mark of 28.82.The other record of the meet went toGeorge Mencik, yet another of the club’sathletes to take advantage of going upinto another age group, George now aM70 threw the heavy weight way out to16.34 to break Charlie Rann’s 1997mark of 15.86.Indeed George’s record distance wasthe best throw of the night’s competitionwell ahead of the next thrower M50Alex Turbin and M55 Ray Green’seffort. Other age group wins on thenight came from M45 Steve Wallace,M80 Ewen Drummond who himselfwould have been breaking records buthas only recently had a knee replacedand is not fully fit, but it didn’t seem tobother him all that much got in a 9.91,not all that far off the mark he set atthat remarkable Weight Pentathlon justbefore the season began.For the women both W40 JayneHardy and W45 Sharon Gibbins got inefforts over 13m, but were overtaken byW60 Jan Davies’ brilliant 14.54. Otherage group winning marks came fromW55 Trish Thomas, and W65 MaryWahren.In the other throw, the discus, threemen got over 30m and a further 10 gotin throws over 20m so the competitionthis season is fairly good. M50 AlexTurbin, M55 Ray Green and M70George Mencik were in that group over30m with the best coming from Alexwith a 39.25. M30 John Donovan, M35Greg Harris, M40 Richard Holgate, M45Steve Wallace and M60 John Hunt allwon their age groups with heaves ofmore than 20m, the best of them wasJohn’s 26.11, however, David Haggiths’29.56 beat them all only to come runnerupin the M50sFor the W40 Jayne Hardy’s 38.87was away ahead of the rest of the field,including Sharon Gibbins’ W45 recordbreaking heave of 30.82. Other agegroup wins went to W50 CarmenCarlon, W55 Trish Thomas with JenBourke winning the W60s that had anunprecedented five competitors in thefield.At the jumps both M30 JohnDonovan and M40 Andrew Endall,another of this season’s newcompetitors, got up in both the long andtriple jumps. Other age group winnerswere M65 Ray Bramwell in the tripleand M75 Rad Leovic in the long. Theonly women competitor in either ofthese two events was W45 Alex Lloydand she only did the long jump and gotin a 3.85m effort.The longer events this week were a3000/5000m run and then the SpiralHandicap over five laps later in themeet.In the 3000m there was quite atussle between M40s Colin Farlow andMick Corlis as well as M50 TrevorJacobs. Colin got up this time around bythree seconds from Mick and 17 secondsahead of Trevor. Age group wins wereseen by M55 Ken Eynon, M65 RogerAbbott and M70 Otmar Dorfer.For the women Sarah Fien showedher class with an easy overall win witha 10.25 and was in actual fact third overthe line a mere second behind MickCorlis. W35 Lisa Wilson’s 12.53 showsthat she is not that far off her best andwill be the one to watch over the comingseason, providing she concentrates onputting in her effort in only one eventper meet. The other age group winnerswere W40 Pam Faulks, W50 CarmelLynch and W55 Brenda Ford.10 men and one woman opted for theextra five laps with again a tight contestbetween M45s Michael and SteveBradford, both just a touch over 17 anda half minutes but Michael was home acouple of seconds ahead of Steve. Of therest Nick Mesher got in a good run with18.39 as did Geoff Moore with 19.42.M50 Terry Levings and M60 GraemeSmall won their respective age groups.The walks, this week over 1500mwere split into two groups, the racewalkers and the fitness walkers. In therace walks W35 Lisa Wilson took on themen and beat the lot, including topwalkers Mark Worrall and M60 RobinWhyte. M55 Tony Andrews, M65 TerryMunro and W55 Alice Scott were agegroup winners.In the fitness walk W50 BevSibthorpe, one of the newcomers to thisseason’s track, was over two minutesahead of the pack with her 9.50 withanother newcomer W55 Carol Kelly,W40 Margaret Mesher and W60 JeanHeath taking out their respective agegroups.Of the three sprints on offer, the 100and 200m and the short hurdles, the bignews of Rad Leovic’s effort was reportedat the top of the report. However, thebest times came from M40 StephenJones with a double in 11.6 and 24.8respectively. Good efforts in the 100mwere seen by M30 Craig Edwards andM40 Ken Gordon with M45 Ken Smith,M65 Ray Bramwell and M70 JackThackray all winning age group marks.A pretty good turnout for the women inthe shorter sprint with 10 getting on theblocks waiting on the starter’s gun tofire. The best of them were W35 CarmelPorter 14 seconds even and W45Marlene Reid 13.7 and W40 VickiMatthews 14.5. W45 Bev Breen andW65 Consie Larmour were age groupwinners.In the 200m M30 Craig Edwardshad to settle for the runners-up spotbehind Stephen Jones but at least hetook out his age group. Both Mark Paineand M45 John Morton ran 26.3 withJohn taking the age group win but Markwas pushed into second spot. In thatM45 age group was an unprecedentednine in the field. Both M70 JackThackray and M75 Rad Leovic won agegroup marks.For the ladies it was a pretty tightcontest between W45 Marlene Reid,W40 Vicki Matthews and W45 KerryBoden. Both Marlene and Vicki wereequal on 29.7 with Kerry only twotenths adrift. Age group wins also wentto W35 Carmel Porter, W50 Maureen