Records broken at athletics More than 260 competitors at ‘hugely successful’ Coral Coast annual carnival

l ATHLETICS

| Isabella Guzman Gonzalez

MORE than 20 records were broken when 260 athletes took to the track and field of Barlow Park last weekend at the Coral Coast Athletics Carnival.

This year’s event, organised by Cairns Athletics, saw Olympians like Ash Moloney competing in preparation for the world championships in Budapest, 27 broken records and major sponsored events like the 100m handicap and the 300m Dash 4 Cash.

Over 600 spectators attended the event in support of their clubs and the local athletes like Cairns Athletics Piper Devine who broke a record in the under-18 800m race, and throwing star from Mulgrave Hannah Edwards (above) who took gold for hammer throw, seeing a leap in attendance post-COVID.

A Cairns Athletics spokeswoman said the event was very successful with Cairns’ athletes taking top positions in lots of the events.

“Coral Coast is one of the largest events on the regional athletics calendar and by all comments received, it was a huge success,” she said.

“In the 100m handicap, sponsored by Body Heart & Soul, the women’s event was won by Kaitlwin Bitossi, 15, from Ross River with Sylvie Waddick, 14, and Ava LentonCater, 15, from Cairns Athletics in second and third place.

“The men’s event, sponsored by Southside Swim School, was won by Joseph Doran from Townsville North Star with second and third place going to Matthew Green from Ross River and Jack Grant from Peak Performance.

The spokeswoman said another popular event were the Dash 4 Cash races.

“Another major draw card is our unique Dash 4 Cash. The women’s event sponsored by Marina Thimios was won by one of our own Piper Devine with second and third place going to Townsville’s Isabella Chester and Alexandra Kanowski,” she said.

“Men’s Dash 4 Cash was sponsored by Cairns Athletics and won by Ross River’s Adam Jorgenson, Thomas Richardson from Townsville took second place and and Jack Grant from Peak Performance, third.”

The Cairns Athletics committee said this had been a great year for the carnival and hope to break attendance records next year.

“The committee all agree that the absolute highlight to this event is to bring families and athletes from all over the north together, and seeing the joy in the kids faces being able to compete and have fun,” the spokeswoman said. For the complete results list, visit the Cairns Athletics Facebook page.