August 26, 2000

The ‘Road Runner’ team came out the winners of the Napier Harrier Club’s Sweeney Shield road relay held on Saturday afternoon. The team of Sonya Clark, Kristy Edmondson, Cheryl Simpson, and Chris Corney came out the winners by over 3 minutes at the end of the relay held around the Puketapu circuit. Although Clark was trailing the field at the end of the first leg, Edmondson had brought the team up one place by the end of the second and Simpson moved them through to within striking distance by the end of the third leg. Then the team dealt the killing blow to the other teams, playing their trump card Chris Corney. Being one team member short, Corney was forced to run the last two legs. This proved to be no problem to the reigning Hawkes Bay cross country champion as he cruised through to run fastest times for both the fourth and fifth legs and secure victory for his team.

Second team home was the ‘Flying Five’ of Josh Betty, Brendan Speakman, Hogan Green, Jo Cavanagh, and Stefan Smith, with ‘Sparky’s’ team of Annika Edmondson, Andrew Prosser, Alan Giles, Eric Speakman, and Kane Green coming in third.

Fastest time on the 5km lap 1 narrowly went to John Craven (19:01) with Josh Betty just 14 seconds back. The 2.5km second leg was taken by Andrew Prosser (10:36) from Kristy Edmondson (10:44), while Ian Clark (12:37) cleaned out the third leg from Hogan Green (12:45). Chris Corney made short work of both laps four and five, taking the fourth by over 2 minutes from Craig Mathers and the fifth by over 1:30 from Stefan Smith.