Emilie Guy made a strong entry into the open cross country ranks with a fifth-place finish in the Victorian Women’s 6km Cross Country Championship at Wandin Park on Saturday.
In her first individual race as an open athlete, the 20-year-old clocked 23min 11sec over the gruelling course to lead Essendon’s open women to second place behind Knox Athletics, which sees each club hold a share of the lead in the race for the Division 2 title after two rounds of Athletics Victoria’s cross country and road racing series (XCR’17).
Also finishing in fifth place was Olympic marathon representative Liam Adams, who looked relaxed in clocking 26:46 for his 8km event to lead an undermanned Essendon men’s outfit to eighth place in Premier Division.
In other notable Essendon results for the day, Amelia Mazza-Downie put in a dominant performance to take out the under 20 women’s 4km in 15:28 ahead of clubmate Maddison Caulfield (fifth in 17:03), while Emily Mizis and Bianca Puglisi both clocked 13:01 over 3km to finish seventh and 10th in their respective under 18 and under 16 events.
