Sydney10 Review: Tall and Reid lead home record runs

3 May 2021

Sydney10 Review: Tall and Reid lead home record runs

After being cancelled in 2020 due to COVID foggy conditions greet the athletes for the return addition of the Sydney 10 in 2021. The men’s race saw records shattered as the women’s depth was the best ever. They were also racing for the 90th NSW Road championship.

The men’s race was an all Run Crew squad parade with coach Ben St Lawrence and his athletes Matt Hudson, Kieran Tall and Tom do Canto, filling the top-4 positions – but what would the order be? With one kilometre remaining Tall and do Canto had put a gap into coach St Lawrence and two-time Hudson. The much younger Tall, grabbed the win by two seconds in a race record 28:55 – the race’s first sub-29 minutes time. Do Canto was close, also dipping under 29 minutes, clocking 28:57. Both broke the race record of 29:01 set by coach-St Lawrence in 2019.

Matt Hudson was in an even closer battled with the coach, grabbing the bronze medal by one second with 29:10, ahead of St Lawrence with 29:11. They recorded the fourth and fifth fastest times in the history of the race, as a record eight athletes dipped under 30 minutes, including Newcastle teenager Luke Young.

In the women’s the incredible range of Lauren Reid was again on show. She led the women’s section of the race, but Canberra-based world cross country representative Leanne Pompeani (BAN) would make it a great finish, finishing just three second behind as they clocked quick times of 32:23 and 32.26 minutes respectively. Their times missed US triathlete Gwen Jorgensen’s race record of 32:12, set in 2015, but bettered the fastest Aussie time of 32:27 set by Lara Tamsett in 2011. The 2012 winner, Belinda Martin (ILL) was third in 33:35.

Full results including the 5k, 2k and wheelchair events are at http://www.nswathletics.info/liveresults/

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW

Image: Run Crew top-4 in the men, Ben St Lawrence, Matt Hudson, Kieran Tall and Tom do Canto. (courtesy David Tarbotton)