Albert Park, Sunday 17th July.
Open Men’s 10km:
A well clear of field 1st & 2nd for Liam & Mitch.
1st Liam Adams 29.48.1
2nd Mitchel Brown 30.15.8.
Excellent runs in top 20% of field by Toby O’Brien, Michael Marantelli, Jeremy Drake & Asmelash Tesema.
Under 18 Women:
3rd Katie Webb, 4th Maddison Caulfield
FULL REPORT:
Athletics Essendon’s Liam Adams enjoyed a solid final hitout ahead of August’s Rio Olympics with a commanding win at the Victorian 10km Road Racing Championships at Albert Park on Sunday.
The 29-year-old stretched out from his rivals approaching the halfway mark, defying the blustery conditions in setting a course record of 29min 48sec and finishing as the only runner to break the 30min mark.
Clubmate Mitchel Brown finished second in 30min 15sec, marking the fourth time the two have finished one-two at a Victorian Championship event.
Making Adams’ win even more impressive was the fact it followed a 20km training run, with the Moonee Ponds resident running from his home to the race start as part of his marathon preparation.
He will now head to the US city of Flagstaff, Arizona, for some high-altitude training before progressing to the Australian Olympic team holding camp in Florida and then onward to Rio.
Essendon’s podium finishes at Albert Park headlined a strong team performance from the club’s open men, who look set to again top the Division 2 standings and increase their lead on the competition in Athletics Victoria’s 2016 season of cross country and road racing (XCR’16).
In other notable results from the day, Athan Tsoulos (10min 6sec) took silver in the under 14 boys’ 3km event, while Katie Webb (10min 21sec) took bronze in the under 18 girls’ 3km.
The XCR’16 season continues on Saturday, August 6 with the Anglesea Ekiden Relays.