2016 Victorian 5000m Championships

Isaac Hockey stepped up to senior competition with aplomb at Lakeside Stadium on Thursday night, taking control of the Victorian 5000m Championships during the middle stages to win a silver medal and mark himself as a threat at the upcoming De Castella 3000m race. The Championship race had four MUAC men in the field, and they all found themselves in the chasing pack as Mitch Brown and then Jordan Gusman cleared out early.  The large chasing pack took some time to get organised before Hockey and teammate Nick Earl took the pace on. Beyond the halfway mark, Hockey had forged a small lead over Toby Rayner and was looking strong. Frankie Conway and Charlie Park were further back in the chasing pack and moving through strongly. Strong running by Hockey pushed him further clear of Rayner over the closing laps as he took 3rd place (2nd Victorian) in a time of 14:24. Conway (14:33) and Park (14:40) both ran hard for personal bests with Earl (14:39) coming back to catch Park in the last 70m.

Stella Radford and Sarah James both ran well for top 6 places in the Championship race, an contest dominated by 2016 Olympian Linden Hall who ran hard from the gun.  A fluctuating race saw Radford and James joining and leaving packs for much of the distance. Both comfortably clocked qualifiers for the Australian Championships with Radford 5th in 16:52 and James 6th in 17:06, a personal best.

There was also some good running in the earlier races by David Sullivan and Julia Atkins.

Results