Locals race onto podium at cross country nationals

Jack Malcolm

Four Nelson cross country runners have raced into the medals at the New Zealand Cross Country Championships. Racing in Taupō at the end of July, Annika Pfitzinger came second in the Senior Women category running 10km, while Cath Delaporte won gold in the 6km Masters Women 45-49, Graeme Lear won silver in the 6km Masters Men 70-74 and Paula Canning won bronze in the 6km Masters Women 50-54.

Alongside the medals were Brooke Bowen finishing in 12th in the Women’s U18, and Joshua Fitzgerald and Fenlon Bayley finishing 17th and 20th, respectively, in the Men’s U20. For Annika, the result means she’s in the running for a spot in the New Zealand team for the World Championships. With the top three open division finishers having potential places in the team, she now has to run a fast 10km road time to earn qualification. But it’s not easy as she has just 34 minutes 30 seconds to meet the standard and solidify her spot to race in Croatia at the start of next year. She says she did have high hopes for the race but finishing in second place exceeded even her expectations.

“A goal would be top three, but a more achievable one would have been top six.”

Annika says she had started off slowly, before having a fantastic last lap that saw her overtake a whole bunch of places in the last kilometre.

“I knew I needed to start off a little more conservatively, but I threw everything at it.”

Cath also impressed, racing in her first national cross country and coming away with the gold. Having ran a 10km in Wellington three weeks before, she says it was a tough stretch of races to do back-to-back.

With Paula and Cath running together every Sunday, the pair were excited to have both come away with silverware.

Paula says the results were a great way to cap off a tough race on a tricky course, despite having a “really bad run”.

“I would have never got that girl (ahead of me). I just couldn’t jump the hurdles, I stopped and walked.”

It’s understandable that she didn’t perform to her best, saying she was still in recovery mode after having just recently wrapped up her own national gold medal in the half marathon in the 50-54 category. Graeme also had to put in a big shift, coming off the back of finishing just seconds short of breaking the national 70-74 half marathon record to the podium in the cross country, as well.