Newman takes bronze and leads team to silver

Round 7 XCR’15:Brimbank Cross Country

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Zac Newman claimed his first Open Victorian medal at the oldest event on the Athletics Victoria calendar, the Victorian 10 Mile Cross Country Championship. Raced annually since 1892, the event this year was Round 7 of the XCR’15 series with MUAC taking 8 teams of athletes out to Brimbank Park to take on the uneven terrain and brutal hills over a variety of distances. Newman, who is in the middle of preparation for the Chicago Marathon, established his position during the middle stages, and held off the fast finishing Mitch Brown to take the bronze in 50:39.4. Nick Earl, 8th and the lightly trained Martin Mashford, 16th, provided further low scores for MUAC and impressive runs by Winter Manager Max Ueda, ultramarathon madman Paul Munro and Charlie Park pushed MUAC into second place in the Premier Men Division. Strong running continued down the order with the Division 2 and 3 Men’s teams taking 5th and 2nd place respectively. In Division 5 the team placed 4th and Paul Shortis claimed another victory over Tony Brain in the season long grudge match, with both claiming victory over Gerarde Kelly.

IMG_8159Winter Captain Al Bryant-Smith’s top level recruitment brought three strong MUAC teams out to Brimbank and once again the Division 5 women took a close second. Clare Walsh in her first race for the winter, Bethany Hosking and Allyson O’Brien took the team to glory This pushes the team to within three points of top of the ladder with three rounds remaining in the season. There were strong runs from Gen Blanch in her farewell run for MUAC before heading off to do her Masters in Sweden and Claire Beynon in her debut for MUAC.  Our Premier Women team took 7th place and Division 3 Women claimed 5th.

For the first time this season MUAC fielded an U20 Mens team with Fred Smithers, Nick Parkinson and Ben Burgess combining to take 5th place in the division, with Smithers leading the team home in 13th place.

Many thanks must go to Phil Van Dueren, Kyle Stocker and Ellen Schaef for helping out on the day as MUAC’s volunteers.

After a sumptuous repast in the MUAC marquee, athletes retired to the comfort of Chinatown’s best Indian restaurant, Gaylords for some fine food, outlandish stories and Haywards 5000, India’s top selling strong beer.

MUAC athletes will be back in action for Round 8 of XCR’15 in two weeks time at the Anglesea Ekiden Relays.

Official results


Athletics Victoria
Victorian 10 Mile and 6km Cross Country Championship, Brimbank Park
Round 7, XCR’15
Premier Women 7th 339 points
Division 3 Women 5th 465 points
Division 5 Women 2nd 471 points
Premier Men 2nd 153 points
Division 2 Men 5th 634 points
Division 3 Men 2nd 777 points
Division 5 Men 3rd 901 points
U20 Men 5th 55 points
U20 Men 6km
12 Frederick Smithers 20:26.6
26 Ben Burgess 23:47.6
25 Nick Parkinson  23:40.9
Open Women 6km
42 Alison Bryant-Smith 24:16.1
49 Genevieve Blanch 24:51.5
68 Ella Trimboli 25:43.6
75 Martine Botha 26:04.9
105 Katharine Scarlett 27:58.5
107 Marie Parsons 28:00.0
115 Claire Beynon 28:24.2
120 Ilka Barr 28:30.5
123 Cassandra Cohen 28:39.2
132 Allyson O’Brien 29:14.8
161 Bethany Hosking 33:07.8
178 Clare Walsh 42:08.9
Sarah McSweeney
Open Men 10 Miles
3 Zac Newman 50:39.4
8 Nicholas Earl 51:50.6
16 Martin Mashford 53:17.2
34 Erik Ueda 55:29.5
44 Paul Munro 56:43.0
48 Charlie Park 57:22.6
67 Daniel Quin 58:26.1
87 David Paroissien 59:31.4
105 James Maguire 1:00:52
118 Hamish Beaumont 1:01:42
128 Tim Hui 1:02:11
129 David McDonald 1:02:28
144 Shohei Waller 1:03:16
147 Lachlan Hegarty 1:03:41
148 Dion Houtman 1:03:46
159 Jordan Mayston 1:04:11
179 Guillermo Munoz Cobo 1:06:25
185 Timothy Thomas 1:07:03
223 Paul Shortis 1:10:42
230 Andrea Gatti 1:11:21
263 Tony Brain 1:14:53