NSW Relays Championships Review

20 November 2022

NSW Relays Championships Review

The open men’s and women’s 4x100m and 4x200m events provided thrilling finishes and quality performances to highlight the NSW Relays Championships held at Campbelltown on the weekend.

In the women’s 4x200m less than half a second separated the top-4 teams as international athletes Michelle Jenneke and Olivia Inkster flew to the finish line. World Championships 100m hurdles semi-finalists Michelle Jenneke brought home her Sydney Uni team to victory in 1:37.95, holding off UTS Norths anchor and World U20 Champs competitor, Olivia Inkster. In third Campbelltown (1:38.39) and fourth Sutherland (1:38.43) pressed all the way to the line. Sydney Uni’s winning team comprised (Emma Klasen, Mia Economou, Alyssa Lowe and Michelle Jenneke).

In the 4x100m, Gen Cowie joined the team for Mia, and they again were victorious in an even closer race clocking 46.37 ahead of Mingara with 46.44. Norths were third (46.89) with Campbelltown fourth in 47.28.

In the men’s relays, Campbeltown were unstoppable with very swift times of 40.87 and 1:25.33, both significantly quicker that the winning times in 2021.

In the 4x100m they defeated the Camden foursome of Josh Azzopardi, Cody Hasler, Chris Bruce and Nathaniel Calvelo who clocked 41.29. The silver medal winning Sydney Uni line-up in the 4x200m was Josh McKevitt, Damien Mizzi, Jack Lynch and Xavier Zuccon.

MIXED 4X100M RELAYS RECORDS

In just their second year on the NSW Relays Championships program, it was no surprise that seven mixed 4x100m relays records were bettered.

In the Open Mixed 4x100m relay, Commonwealth Games representative Josh Azzopardi anchored his Camden team which also comprised Sundance Fuller, Kaitlin Tattersal and Nathan Calvelo, to a win in a meet record time of 43.56, over their Sydney South-Western rival Campbelltown who also went under the old record clocking 43.75 in second. Third placed Maitland also dipped under the record with 44.18.

In the under-20 relay new Australian under-18 100m record holder Sebastian Sultana anchor his Campbelltown team to a record time of 43.97, smashing their own record. Sultana easily held off World U20 Championships sprinter and NSW open 100m champion Olivia Inkster who was anchoring the UTS Norths team in 46.01 seconds.

Other record breaking teams were:

U14 – Westfields 50.66 (Bronson Bzadough, Akeem Kabba, Ruby Kernaghan, Ruby Talbot)

U16 – Sutherland 45.46 (Taurus Traino, Daniel Hornery, Neve Jenkins, Tammin Lampret)

160+ - UTS Norths 49.01 (Joanna Davis, Ashley McMahon, David Turner, Monique Perry)

200+ - UTS Norths 53.31 (Kylie Strong, Stuart Maxwell, Andy West, Nicki Drinkwater) 

240+ - Sydney Pacific 62.75 (Jeff Wrighton, Tony Morphis, Linda McDowell, Amanda Coombe)

SENIOR DISTANCE CLASSICS

The men’s and women’s open 4x800m and 4x1500m events were terrific races between a few of the tradition distance running powerhouses of the sport in NSW.

Randwick Botany’s 18-year-old Ben Thomas set up his club’s win in the open men’s 4x800m team, when he blew the race open with a sub-1:51 second leg.

RBH’s pushed on to clock an impressive 7:40.08, insight of the 7:29 record set 13 years ago. RBH’s winning team comprised NSW 10,000m champion Drew Fryer, Hamish Hart and Alex Talbot. They held off a strong performance by Sydney Uni whose line-up of Ben Bishop, Lachlan Townsend, Oscar Pursey and Obssa Youssof clocked 7:44.97 for silver.

Sydney University bounced back to defeat Randwick-Botany in the 4x1500m in a race where just three seconds separated the teams over 16 minutes of running. The All-White team of Connor Whiteley, Lachlan Townsend, Dylan Offord and Tom Davies clocked 16:06.91 to defeat RBH in 16:09.62 with the same team as the 4x800m line up except for Stefan Music in for Ben Thomas.

In the women’s senior 4x800m and 4x1500m, there was a double for Bankstown’s largely teenage team. Led by Youth Olympic medallist Jaylah Hancock-Cameron and 19-year-old Shayne Hargraves, Bankstown won the events in times of 9:10.07 and 19:24.42. The wins were off the back of solid splits of 2:07 and 4:24 from Jaylah. The 4x800 team also included Cheyenne Murray, 14 and Ella Colluso, 15, while the 4x1500m team was Olivia Greenhalgh, 16 and Jessica Kann, 13.

In the 4x800m Bankstown defeated Sydney University who clocked 9:27.72, while in the 4x1500m the silver medal went to Randwick Botany who were anchored by the NSW 3000m champion Holly Campbell in 4:30.

QUALITY HIGH JUMPING AND DISCUS THROWS

There was a series of excellent high jumps across the ages, highlighted by 16-year-old Sydney Pacific athlete

Ivan Prizmic who cleared a PB 2.05m in the under-18 competition. In the open event, 20-year-old Sydney Uni athlete Jonathon Titmarsh cleared 2.10m ahead of Nicholas Kollias’s 2.05m for the winning Randwick-Botany team.

North Coast’s Alex Harrison, cleared 1.75m, but it would be insufficient for Sydney Uni to win the event, with Illawong winning yet another women’s high jump title, courtesy of a team effort from Holly Ramsey, Monique Oste, Sarah Argall and Alana Pokorny.

In the under-18 high jump, Sutherland sprinter Jasynta Lampret was the best on field - clear at an impressive 1.70m to lead her club to a silver medal.

In the open women’s discus, there were excellent early season throws by Sally Shokry with 45.38m and Ashlyn Blackstock with 47.15m.

U16 BOYS: SEE-SAWING BATTLES AS RECORDS ARE BROKEN

Sutherland and Nepean clubs waged some close battles in the under-16 boys sprints. Nepean struck first in the 4x100m timed final breaking the meet record with a time of 43.50. But in the very next race Sutherland went one better breaking Nepean’s new record by nearly half a second in a time of 43.06. Such was the depth Campbelltown, second in race two, also broke the pre-championship meet record clocking 43.66.

On Sunday, Nepean responded with a thrilling win in the 4x200m by just 0.03 second over Sutherland. Lunging for the line on the anchor leg, Nepean’s NSW All Schools sprint treble champion Xavier Perry caught his spike in the track and tumbled over the line, but held his form sufficiently for the photo finish judges to give Xavier the win. Nepean clocked 1:31.47 to just miss the meet record by 0.22 seconds.

Sutherland’s record breaking line-up in the 4x100m, 4x200m and 4x400m (gold medallists) was Taurus Traino, Danny Kearney, Daniel Hornery and Michael Paino.

Nepean’s 4x100m team was John McDonald, Max Konstantinof, Xavier Perry and Jackson Moule, who started athletics just a month ago. For the gold medal winning 4x200m team, Ethan Hatfield was brough in for Jackson Moule.

OTHER RECORDS BROKEN

Some of the other meet records to be broken over the weekend.

Women 4x200 Metre 200+: UTS Norths 1:55.31 (Maria Cimino, Monique Perry, Jo Davis, Kylie Strong)

Men 4x100 Metre Relay U20: Campbelltown 41.18 ??

Men Javelin 200+: Aths Wollongong 143.52m (Rodney Tebbutt, Anthony Howlett, Philip Frkovic, Peter Kidd)

Men Javelin Throw 120+: Wests 178.90m (John Crandell, Ben Baker, Amardeep Malik, Anatoly Kirievsky)

Men Shot Put 160+: Balmain 42.79m (Michel Hemmings Jones, Andrew Watson, Andrew Kohlrusch, Samuel Bray)

Men Hammer Throw 160+: 124.54m (Gavin Murray, Johannes Petzer, Ian Guthrie, Simon Butler-White)

Men Javelin Throw 240+: NSW Masters 123.11m (Johannes Petzer, Simon Buttler-White, Gavin Murray, Steve Crocker)

Women Hammer Throw 160+: UTS Norths 128.56m (Maria Cimino, Caroline Layt, Jenny Schell, Helena Smith)

Women Javelin Throw 160+: Nowra 80.22m (Tori Sayer, Leanne O'Leary, Melinda Jennings, Melinda Mustapic)

Women Shot Put 200+: UTS Norths 35.89m (Caroline Layt, Kylie Strong, Maria Cimino, Janet Naylon)

Women Javelin Throw 200+: 82.46m UTS Norths (Nicki Drinkwater, Maria Cimino, Janet Naylon, Kylie Strong)

MEDAL TALLY

Below is the medal tally for the NSW Relays Championships. It makes for some fascinating reading. There will always be debate about who tops the tally, either most medals or most gold. In major championships is has usually been most gold.

We can see from the tally UTS Norths won the most gold with 23 (& 46 medals overall), while Sutherland won 22 gold, but claimed more overall medals with 52. Host club Campbelltown had a great meet with 27 medals including 11 gold. Illawong also tremendous with 29 medals and 7 gold.

From the country, rise of Athletics Wollongong continues after they won the NSW Country Championships point score in January this year. They claimed 7 gold and 12 medals overall. Nowra were also very strong with 3 gold and 14 medals overall.

Special mention to Sydney University, primarily just in the opens, winning 6 gold and 19 medals, while Trinity, primarily in the juniors, 6 gold and 12 medals. A big thanks to Tony Smyth for the data.

CAMPBELLTOWN CLUB ADMINISTRATORS

An enormous thanks to the Campbelltown club for hosting the NSW relays Championships. Led by Terry Manns, they spent days of preparation and long hours on the competition days.

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW

Feature Image: Women’s 4x200m finish (courtesy of David Tarbotton)

Medal Tally

Club Name Gold/Silver/Bronze = Total medals

UTS Norths 23/18/5 = 46

Sutherland 22/18/12 = 52

Campbelltown 11/4/12 = 27

Randwick Botany 8/6/3 = 17

Hills District 8/3/6 = 17

Illawong 7/16/6 = 29

Aths Wollongong 7/2/3 = 12

Sydney Uni 6/6/7 = 19

Trinity 6/3/3 = 12

St. George 4/5/3 = 12

Athletics East 4/1/0 = 5

Nowra 3/4/7 = 14

Wests 3/4/4 = 11

Westfields 3/0/3 = 6

NSW Masters 3/0/1 = 4

Sydney Pacific 3/0/0 = 3

Balmain 2/4/2 = 8

Syd Ath Academy 2/2/4 = 8

South Coast 2/2/2 = 6

Bankstown 2/1/0 = 3

Coast Hunter 2/0/0 = 2

Camden 1/ 3/1 = 5

Mingara 1/2/2 = 5

Cherrybrook 1/2/2 = 5

Blue Mountains 1/2/1 = 4

Nepean 1/2/0 = 3

Ill Blue Stars 1/1/3 = 5

Other medallists: Ryde 8, Scots College 2, Macquarie Hunter 2, Hunter Region 4, Hornsby 2, Kembla Joggers 1, Kings’ 1, Mounties 1, Winston Hills 1, Adamstown 1, St Ignatius 2, Girraween 1, Delta Running 1, Maitland 1, Newc Flyers 1, UNSW 1, Barker 1.