Victorious Weekend: Ballarat Region Triumphs with 73 Gold Medals and Record-breaking Feats at Victorian Country Championships!
With the Victorian Country Championships all wrapped up its time to reflect on some amazing performances across the weekend, there is so many to recognized and give praise too, not only for their record-breaking performances but also for their medal wins and all-round club spirit.
As a whole the Ballarat Region walked, threw, jumped, and ran away with a total of 73 Gold, 68 Silvers and 44 bronze medals, and 17 BRAC records and 1 Victorian Country Record. An Outstanding performance!!
Wendouree came away with 31 Gold, 24 Silver and 22 Bronze, Ballarat Harriers finished off the weekend with 22 Gold, 26 Silvers and 11 Bronze. Next was Ballarat Y.C.W who rounded out the weekend with 10 Gold, 10 Silvers and 5 Bronzes, and finally Eureka, to top it off finished with a total of 10 Gold, 10 Silvers and 5 Bronzes.
Some of the records from the weekend to highlight are Cooper Sherman who went sub 21 seconds to not only break his own 200m record/PB but also the Open Men’s Victorian Country Record which has stood for over 25 years. Cooper was also the recipient of the Australia Day Award which is handed out to an athlete with the most outstanding performance of the competition. Fraser Saunders smashed the Open Men’s BRAC 5000m Walk record which has stood for over 50 years, a real testament to his hard work and dedication. Another long-standing record that fell was the Open Women’s 4x100m relay. This record has stood for over 40+ years so well done to the Wendouree team who were able to beat the clock for a new time of 49.66s. Katherine Dowie knocked off the Open Women’s 5000m BRAC record which was previously held by Commonwealth Games representative Victorian Mitchell which was set in 2001! The 10,000m race was also set a light with numerous records being broken across the 40+,50+ age groups.
There were also many great multi medal performances across the weekend, to name some we had James Pendred who collected a total of 6 medals in the Open Men’s AMB across the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, Javelin & Long Jump. Another multi medal winner was Bridie Shanahan who came away with 5 medals in the Women’s Under 20 field in the Discus, Javelin, Long Jump, Shot Put and Triple Jump.
As always, a huge thanks to the officials who spent their weekends helping and keeping the Country Championships on schedule. Also, thanks to the clubs and their helpers across the weekend to take time out of your schedule to help the events run smoothly.
