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East Burwood takes Landy Shield -- again
East Burwood venue continued its recent domination of The Landy Shield when it took the inter-venue prize for the second successive year on Landy Trophy night at Doncaster on Valentine's Day, February 14.
In fact the 'trifecta' was identical to 2010 when East Burwood scored clearly from Doncaster with Collingwood third.
Seven individual VMA venues were represented in this year's competition with visiting Landy Trophy entrants coming from Queensland, NSW, the ACT and Tasmania. There was originally an entry from the Northern Territory but unfortunately he had to withdraw due to injury.
East Burwood's winning team was spearheaded by the oldest man in the event, Leo Coffey, 81, who won both his heats before finishing third behind Hugh Coogan (Qld) and Kathy Heagney in the final. This gave him 25 points with Ashley Ryan providing his principal support with 16. Darren James and Wayne James finished equal on 13 points making an aggregate for the three top points-scorers of 54, seven clear of Doncaster with Collingwood (31) a distant third.
Coffey and James were also among the top three in 2010 when Darren Arthur's father, Ron, joined them in accumulating 62 points to score convincingly from Doncaster (49) and Collingwood (45).
Coffey, who was a highly successful professional for more than 50 years, declared after the Stawell Gift carnival last Easter that he was retiring from professional running to concentrate on trying to win The Landy Trophy.
His bid to do so in 2010 was frustrated by his failure to run a place in his 1000 metre heat in which he was cut out of third in the last stride. That meant he missed a place in the final by one point. He went on to record a dazzling win in the Consolation, running a flying 45.97, the second-fastest time on the night, bettered only by Marge Allison's winning time of 45.34 in the final.
Coffey, a brilliant sprinter, declared that this year he had to improve his long heat in a bid to make sure of getting into the final. As it turned out he ran almost identical time to the previous year but on this occasion it was good enough to win, with the result that he went into the final as one of five who were unbeaten in their heats.
Ironically, however, it was two of those who didn't win both their heats who were responsible for upsetting his dreams of success.
Coffey went into the final with a first round 200 metre heat win over Kathy Heagney to his credit, while Heagney, 60, was responsible for the upset of the night when she beat Hugh Coogan, 75, in their long heat.
Coogan, however, turned the tables in the final, over 400 metres, taking the title for the fourth time, with Heagney getting up in the last couple of strides to cut Coffey out of second. It was the third time Heagney had been runner-up in the final but the first time Coffey had even got into the race, having previously won the Consolation on three occasions.
Coffey's bold plan almost worked and he was unlucky to run into two of the true stars of Landy Trophy history, both of whom showed their top form on the night. His time of 46.74 would have been good enough to have won the final on three of the previous 11 occasions The Landy Trophy has been run but it wasn't good enough this time, and that's the only one that counts.
His efforts, however, were largely responsible for East Burwood breaking Mentone's stranglehold on The Landy Shield, which they won the first three times it was contested after being introduced in 2007. - Richard Trembath – 25 Feb 11
Flood of Champions in Landy Trophy Field
Nine of Australia’s top interstate Masters’ athletes plus one from Ireland are expected to contest The Landy Trophy, to be run at Rieschiecks Reserve at Doncaster on the night of Monday, February 14.
Tasmania’s two best Masters, World Championships gold medalists Mick Stevenson and Alan Coleman have both entered while the defending champion, Queensland star Marge Allison, has assured organizers she will defend her title and brilliant NSW sprinter Gianna Mogentale will make her Landy debut.
Queensland will have three representatives, the ACT two and the Northern Territory and NSW one each.
Allison, 66, will be joined by the three-time winner of The Landy, Hugh Coogan, 75, who won the event in 2006, ’07 and ’08, and former Doncaster runner Tony Keeghan, who is now living in Brisbane.
Coogan suffered an ankle injury in the 2008 Landy final and has competed only once since, winning the 100 metres in the M75 division of the Pan Pacific Championships at the Gold Coast in November before breaking down again. He has since returned to training but suspects he may be ‘short of a run’ come Landy night.
Canberra runner John Lamb, 61, who has made the past two finals, is another expected to be back for the 2011 edition, while the ACT will also be represented by Sue Bourke, 51, the reigning Australian 400m champion in her age-group and record-breaking winner of the 100, 200 and 400m events at the recent Alice Springs Masters.
Former Melbourne runner Gary Ewart, 46, is now living in the Northern Territory but he, too, will be back for The Landy while Mogentale will add further class to the field.
As well as having an imposing record at world level Mogentale, 47, dominated last year’s National championships, winning every event from 60 to 1500 metres and taking the Champion of Champions title for the third time. Stevenson, 70, is best known as a hurdler and has the remarkable record of 13 medals in hurdles events at world level, one gold, one bronze and the rest silver. Stevenson also has two world relay gold medals to his credit, as has Coleman, 62. Both are fine sprinters on the flat and have the advantage of being at the start of their age-groups.
Perhaps the most interesting runner of them all, however, is Irish star Colm Rothery, 51. Rothery has six World Championships, two European Championships and two World Indoor Championships to his credit and formerly held the world M40 record for 800 metres at 1:50.63.
The Landy Trophy is a heats and final event conducted from handicap marks based on the Age-Graded Percentage Scale, which makes allowance for age and gender. All runners contest two rounds of heats, over 200 metres and 1000 metres, before the top points scorers graduate to the final, over 400 metres. The event is in its twelfth year and is generally regarded as the single most prestigious event in Masters’ Athletics in Australia. It is named in honour of Australian athletics icon John Landy, the second man in the world to run one mile in less than four minutes.
Landy, a former Governor of Victoria, is patron of Doncaster and has indicated he will again be on hand to make the trophy presentations.
Two other past winners of The Landy, Keith Howden, 65, and Bob Wishart, 69, are again expected to contest the event, as is the brilliant but unlucky veteran Leo Coffey, 81, who has the unenviable record of having won the Consolation final on three occasions without ever having made it into a Landy final. Coffey’s time in winning the Consolation last year was only marginally slower than Allison, 65, recorded in leading all the way to beat perennial finalist Ron Arthur.
This year’s Landy Trophy meeting will see the reinstatement of the principal supporting event, The Manningham Mile, which is for open class middle distance runners with age-graded allowances for females and Under-18s and Under-16s. The mile was not run last year due to a lack of sponsorship of the event, but this has now been taken over by Manningham YMCA, replacing the City of Manningham.
The highlight of the event will be the clash between the reigning Australian 800 metre champion Katherine Katsanevakis and World Cross-Country contender David McNeill, who won the prestigious Zatopek 10,000 Classic at Olympic Park in 2009.
Another feature on the program will be The Doncaster Dash, a 100 metres event for members of Doncaster Little Athletics.
Entry forms for The Landy Trophy and The Manningham Mile can be downloaded from
www.mastersathleticsdoncaster.org
, or from here . . .
Landy Trophy Flyer
or, see the
VMA Event Calendar.
Shirley Young - the joy of Running - a Profile
Shirley Young, at the age of 47, began running during family holidays at Tidal River in Wilsons Promontory in January 1977, and continued running at home with Ron and daughter Lorraine after the holidays. . . . Shirley ran her best marathon [3:18:38] in 1987 at 57 years of age. . . . Shirley has now completed 72 marathons. . . . Shirley has also had a great deal of success at State and Australian championships, and has won gold, silver and bronze medals at world veteran games.
2010 Victorian Sports Awards
Lavinia at
VMA Champs - 2010
On Monday 15 November my husband, Bert Pelgrim and I were guests at the 2010 Victorian Sports Awards held at the Crown Casino. Organised by VicSport these prestigious awards recognise the outstanding achievements of athletes / sporting personnel across all disciplines in 16 different categories.
We were privileged to be in the company of high profile athletes including :
- Lydia Lassila , Olympic Aerial Skiier - Winner Victorian Sportsperson of the Year; and Winner Victorian Female Athlete of the Year
- Cadel Evans , Cycling - Winner Victorian Male Athlete of the Year
- Jim Steynes , AFL - Winner Outstanding Contribution to Sport
Lavinia Petrie , Athletics - Winner 2010 Victorian Masters Sports Award
Amazingly Lavinia also won this award a decade ago! She is now on the Honour Roll for winning the 2010 and
2000 Victorian Masters Sports Award. It is a great achievement and we (Bert, Julie and June) are all very
proud of her.
– June Petrie, 19
Nov 10.
[Ed:
And, all of us in the VMA are very proud to have Lavinia as a very involved and very active VMA
member
]
VMA 2010 Marathon Championship
[UPDATED 10 Nov 10]
Results from the Melbourne Marathon are now available
. . .
here
and on the
Results > VMA Championships page.