NSW Road Relay Championships - Preview

Published Thu 03 Aug 2023

3 August 2023

NSW Road Relay Championships - Preview

Bankstown and Run Crew clubs will start favourites for the 71st NSW Road Relay Championships which this Sunday will returned to a past venue, The Crest Bankstown, after nine years on the Central Coast.

NSW Cross Country champions Ed Goddard (in 2023) and Aaron Spiessberger–Parker (in 2022), dual Olympian Ben St Lawrence and rising star Luke Hince lead four strong club teams. Spiessberger–Parker’s Bankstown team, which also includes Josh Johnson, starts favourite to win just their third men’s title in the 71-year history of the race. Defending champions, UTS Norths have recent 2:12.52 marathoner, Ed Goddard will lead a competitive team, as will Ben St Lawrence for his Run Crew team. Kembla Joggers are the dark horses with Luke Hince the standout there. Randwick-Botany, who won 11 straight titles between 2006 and 2016, are also strong with Ben Thomas and Stefan Music on duty for the harrier specialists.

In the women’s, Run Crew are an unbackable favourite with world cross country representative Aynslee Van Graan leading two regular in the strong team – Gemma Jenkins and Niamh Allen. They are joined for this event by terrific junior Bronte Oates, 18, who has just returned from a tour of Europe where she set PBs in the 3000m and 5000m. Vying for the podium in the women’s race are Newcastle Flyers and UTS Norths. Newcastle welcome back outstanding distance runner Jessica Noble, the 2022 NSW Distance runner of the Year. Noble returns from a late summer injury. UTS Norths, winners of this title in 2012, are led by Kate Spencer, who in 2016 won the two NSW Cross Country titles.

See below the fastest legs recorded in this race between 2099 and 2022 in the races conducted at Wollongong and Ourimbah. Some great names of NSW distance running have helped their clubs to the podium.

NSW Road Relay Preview and History

The first road relays were held in Newcastle in 1950. The winners for the first four years were Western Suburbs, before Botany Harriers won the next three. For the first 20 years the event was a four-member event with each leg 5 mile (8km). Between 1970 and 1991 the legs were 10km, before dropping back to 6km, then 5km, and now 4km.

In the early years, the race was held in various country or regional locations including: Wollongong, Nowra, Camden, and even Goulburn. The first city race was held in 1960 in Fairfield.

Future venues were: Canberra, Botany, Parramatta Park, Hensley/Pagewood, Macquarie Uni, Taren Point, Eraring, Homebush, Holsworthy, bicentennial Park, Parramatta, Cordeaux Dam and Ourimbah.

Prominent members of the winning teams in the first decade included: John Atterton (Eastern Suburbs) who coaches Beijing Olympian Lachlan Renshaw and Pat Clohessy (Botany Harriers) coach of Simon Doyle, current Australian 1500m record holder.

The first women’s event was conducted in 1978 and was won by Blue Mountains Branch.

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW
Image: Flashback to the 2013 race when Nowra’s Arron Spiessberger–Parker and Olympian Jye Edwards were on the podium for their U18 club team Nowra.

NSW Road Relays 2009-2022: Fastest Legs women

12:32 Milly Clark SYU 2011

12.49 Milly Clark SYU 2016

12:54 Paige Campbell SYU 2018

12:55 Holly Campbell RBH 2022

13:00 Kate Spencer RBH 2016

13:02 Eloise Wellings SUT 2009

13:09 Bridey Delaney STG 2013

13:14 Clohe Tighe KEJ 2013

13:15 Jess Pascoe SYU 2016

13:16 Jenny Blundell SYU 2022

13:19 Eloise Wellings SUT 2011