St Kevins Amateur Athletic Club Inc

Matt Bertacco off to World Junior Championships

Kevin — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:38:58 +0000

After a great summer season that saw him run a new PB of 10.71 (U18 & U20 club record, #2 Open all time), Matt Bertacco is off the the World Junior Championships in Barcelona, Spain, from 10 – 15 July.

It is a huge achievement to represent Australia at the World Juniors – the last SKAAC athlete to achieve it was Steve Landers in 2002 (Steve’s results from 2002 are available here – 6th in the final, the name of the guy running the 2nd leg for Jamaica sounds vaguely familiar…). And Matt is not only going but on recent results he looks to be in very good form.

Matt had a pre-departure competition at Box Hill on Saturday to try to achieve the pre-departure time of 10.86 – which he did in impressive style, clocking 10.79s on a wet track into a headwind. Matt has another competition at Knox next Satuday, before heading off to Brisbane for the Australian team’s pre-departure team camp. After that he has one final competition (venue TBA) before heading off overseas.

We wish Matt the best of luck and will following his results and posting them on the club website as they come to hand.

Scott Crowe – Australian Long Jump Champion!!!

Kevin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:27:55 +0000

Congratulations to Scott Crowe, who is now the Australian Long Jump Champion, taking out the title at Lakeside over the weekend with a jump of 7.69m (w 0.2), comfortably ahead of Shaun Fletcher of Queensland (7.42, w 1.3).

Underlining the magnitude of Scott’s achievement, he becomes only the third club member to have won an open age national title (joining Simon Lewin, 800m, and Steve Cain, decathlon x 2) – well done Scott!

In other results from the Nationals, well done also to Alex Rowe, a close 2nd in the 800m in 1:48.49.

Full Results from the nationals are available here: http://www.athletics.com.au/home/news/newsletter/2012/april/90th_australian_athletics_cham_2

Jamieson 5km Run this Saturday 31 March 2012

Kevin — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:27:40 +0000

The first race of the Winter Season is the Jamieson 5km at Scotch College this Saturday. The race starts at 2.30pm, so get there by 2pm to be in time for warm up and registration. Race details are here: http://www.apsoc.net.au/races.html

The full Winter fixture of both APSOC and AV races is also available on the APSOC site here: http://www.apsoc.net.au/calendar.html

Congratulations too to Xavier Chapman for taking our the Richard Hope Trophy at the Tan on Sunday – good signs for a solid season ahead!

8.47pm Saturday 3/3/12 – Everyone to Lakeside!

Kevin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:57:38 +0000

Tomorrow night world record holder and world champion David Rudisha runs his first 800m of the year, as he has every year for 3 years now, against SKAAC’s Alex Rowe (and a few others) at the Melbourne Track Classic.

The first year launched him to the world record, the next year the world championship and this year, hopefully the silver medal at the Olympics (behind Rowie). Along the way, while racing against Rudisha, Rowie took out the club 800m record and ran the 2nd fastest Australian junior 800m of all time.

It’s not everyday that you get to see a world record holder in his prime, in the event in which he holds the record. Let alone a club record holder having a serious crack in the Olympic trials in the same race.

So hopefully we see lots of club members down at the track to support Rowie (and Rudisha and the rest) in what should be a sensational race!

Shield Final Wrap Up

Kevin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:48:33 +0000

Peter McGarry, Steve Cain and Jack Howard at the Hammer, Shield Final 2012

A fantastic effort by SKAAC in the Shield Final resulted in a very respectable third placing to (eventual) winners Glenhuntly, with Athletics Essendon in second spot. Our congratulations to Glenhuntly and all other clubs that competed, making it a great contest. Also we thank all AV and all the officials/volunteers that work very hard to make the day run as smoothly as possible.

Whilst there is no doubt we wanted to win, and it is disappointing not to win, the efforts of all athletes on the day, and everyone that competed during the season, should make us all very proud of our achievements this season. A ‘back to back’ regional Premiership is a great achievement by the club.

There were many highlights last Saturday and some great individual performances. Following are some (if not all) highlights from our Shield Final efforts.

Club captain Steve Cain again showed his dominance of the AV Shield, competing in Shot Put (1^st), High Jump (4^th), Triple Jump (2^nd), Hammer (4^th), 200m (6^th) and 4x400m (3^rd). Steve won the Shot Put and was 3 or 4 in all the others. Great effort – true captain’s performance.

Jack Howard won the hammer competition (33.60m) and was a very competitive 7^th in the Shot Put with a throw of 11.37m.

Jason Kozica earned a PB and came 2nd in the 3000m walk. In what was also worthy of mention of Jase’s performance was that his 200m (‘running’) PB was also in danger of being broken during this event. Quite remarkable!! Gerald Sofianos was our 2^nd walker but unfortunately was DQ’d. A great effort, all the same, by our most senior member.

Peter McGarry, even at the ripe old age of 40 (ish) Pete is still managing PB’s! He achieved another one at the Shield Final and finished 2nd in the Hammer (31.34m).

Simon Field, what a run in the 5,000m. Simon finished 5th in what was a very high class field. Gutsy run to the end (14.50.1).

Xavier Chapman showed enormous courage in the 5,000m (16.23.0). Pace was on early but Xavier managed to maintain form and hold off a massive charge from two Glenhuntly athletes. Xavier then following up with a courageous run in the 800m (2.01.8).

Dino Imbriano (19.59) ran the 5k after he spent most of the week trying to reduce swelling in his knee so he could run. A great effort to even get on the track. Aaron Little (18.07) has been a very handy addition to our middle distance ranks this year and ran the 5000m.

Steve Landers, form in the 200m (23.62s). Steve then saved his toughest performance for the 4x400m. Running the last leg, and with 120m to go, Steve was in 2nd spot closing in on first, he tore his calf. Somehow he kept running and was only just pipped on the line finishing, 3rd. It was such a determined effort to finish the race and ensure SKAAC valuable points in the relay!

James Pettigrew (1.57.6, 4^th). A classic tactical run in the 800m. A 61 sec first lap followed by a blistering 56 sec second lap. James’ was seeing the pace during the race and his tactics helped ensure maximum points for SKAAC. James then followed up running the third leg of the 4x400m in 50 sec.

The Nelson brothers competed in many events, 2^nd (combined) only to Steve Cain. The brothers are great competitors, but on this day, Hamish Nelson was to come out on top to take the (Nelson) Shield. Hamish in 400H (4^th 57.77s), High Jump (5^th 1.80m), Triple Jump (7^th 11.97) and 200m (24.19s). Zach Nelsoncompeted in High Jump (1.65m), Triple Jump (11.72) and was unlucky in the 200m where unfortunately he was DQ’d for a false start.

800′s were a great spectacle. Each race was very tactical and all our runners responded! In addition to those mentioned above, congratulations on great efforts by Eamon Lynch, Greg Mitchell, Jeremy Weeksand Tom Crowley.

Club stalwarts Mark Brady and Joe Lynch competed in the 400 Hurdles and 5000m, respectively.

In the final event of the day it was an enthralling 4x400m relay race and determined performance by the relay team, finishing 3^rd behind Glenhuntly and Essendon. The team in running order was: Chris Wilkinson, Steve Cain, James Pettigrew and Steve Landers (3.25.74).

Well done to everyone that helped make it a great day for the club, including athletes, coaches and the ‘hard working’ SKAAC committee. Whilst we didn’t win this year, we will start to look to next year and start our campaign to get the Shield back to SKAAC.

Shield Final Team and Event Details

Kevin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:20:42 +0000

The Athletics Victoria Shield Final is on THIS SATURDAY, 11 February 2012 and SKAAC goes into the final aiming to defend the state title won for the first time last year, having already secured back to back East Region Premierships. The Shield Final will be held at the new Albert Park stadium, with the first events, the 3000m walk, the 400m hurdles and the shot put all scheduled to start at 10.00am.

The SKAAC team has been selected and the team sheet, including times for each event, is available here.

Congratulations to everyone who made the team. There are almost always some issues and injuries on the day, so reserve athletes please be there to warm up and be available for your event – several reserve athletes ended up in the team on the day for last year’s Shield Final and being able to cover the resulting gaps on the day is crucial.

For everyone else, please come along to support the team and enjoy the day. SKAAC base camp will be in the stands along the home straight. Details of the post final (win or lose) celebrations will be posted closer to the day.