Terrigal athlete Allanah Pitcher’s historic teams silver medal was the highlight for NSW at the 2022 World Race Walking Team Championships held in Oman over the weekend.
NSW had three representatives at the championships, all from the Central Coast, with training partners Tyler Jones and Carl Gibbons joining Pitcher.
All three train at Mingara Athletics club under Frank Overton.
Gibbons and Pitcher were making their Australian team debut, while for Jones it was his first appearance in a senior national team.
Lining up with 36 athletes from over 20 countries in the under-20 women’s 10km walk, Pitcher was ranked 24th, but performed way above that level.
Through the first kilometres she was with the lead pack, but as the pace quickened, she lost a few seconds to the leaders.
She was in 14th place after the third kilometre, but over the next 4km, gradually moved up to eighth.
She slipped to ninth at 9km, but her last kilometre was brilliant.
As most athletes were feeling the heat and fatigue from the early pace, she was wearing them down and flying home. Her final kilometre split of 5:02 was only bettered by the medallists.
She passed two Spanish athletes who would eventually finish eighth and 12th (and the team third) as Pitcher zoomed up to a magnificent seventh clocking 49:51, just 11 seconds from her PB in a race where only one athlete set a personal best due to the heat and humidity.
More exciting was the news that with teammates Olivia Sandery (from SA) and Alana Peart, Pitcher took silver in the teams event – the highest ever team result for Australia.
Prior to the race Pitcher felt they had a hope of a team medal.
“It’s so crazy,” she said.
“I knew we had a good chance but at the end of the day, it’s the first international competition for all of us and we were just out here to have fun and do our best, so the medal is a great cherry on top.”
In the men’s 35km, Gibbons made an historic Australian debut at the distance, never previously held at world level.
On the start line there were 65 athletes from 29 countries.
Gibbons started conservatively, 51st after one kilometre.
Mid-race he sat around 40th, but over the later stages made tremendous progress recording one of his fastest splits at the 32km mark.
He hit the finish line in 29th clocking 2:46.35 – an inaugural Oceania and Australian record.
There was also action aplenty for Jones in the open men’s 20km event.
After sitting nicely in 35th place through the middle of the race, Jones moved up to 30th at 12km, but unfortunately before the 14km he was disqualified.
Source:
Media release, Mar 7
David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW