Tassie walkers charge on
11 Jun 2008
Four young walkers from Tasmania; Tahlia Hunt, Sophie Eberhardt, Meagan Richards and Clare Cronley travelled to the ACT to take part in the biggest Race Walking Carnival that is held in Australia each year, with their coach Rosemary Coleman.
The walks were held on the banks of Lake Burley, in brilliant sunshine and the girls performed exceptionally well.
A record 330 race walkers from around Australia took part, with our girls all performing huge personal bests on a difficult road course.
Tahlia Hunt: was the best perfomed walker in the 10 years 1km, with a 1.10 personal best in 5.40.00. Tahlia came a credible 6th overall.
Sophie Eberhardt took a massive 1.75 minutes off her personal best to record 11.42.00 in the 12 years 2km race and came 12th overall. Sophie also took out first place in the 12 years handicap.
In the the 14 years event over 2km, Tahlia and Sophie raced again several minutes after their individual races and teamed up with Clare Cronley (18th) 12.04.00 and Meagan Richards 13.34.00 ( 26th) both achieving huge personal bests.
Daniel Coleman once again is proving that he is well on his way to becoming the future of walking with a win in the Open Men's 10mile(16.1km) in 1.17.56. He backed this up with a win in the ACT State Championship 10km in 45.26.00, as well as winning the Australian Federation walk.
26km was in deed no mean feat, and Daniel was happy with his performance, although the 10 mile was contested as a training walk.
Gerard Cronley was also successful in wining the ACT Walkers Fitness 5 mile.
Lynette Bannister, now walking for Victoria's Race Walking Club, also performed credibly in the 10 mile, coming 7th, taking 6 minutes off her personal best, and then walked in the 5km later in the afternoon, in 4th place ( 25.36.00).
The Race Walking fraturnity are looking forward to the nationals in August when for the first time, the Australian Race Walking federation and the Australian Road Championships are joined together, making this the largest carnival ever in the history of Austalian Race Walking.
With thanks to Rosemary Coleman.