Road

Bendigo region athletes have launched a successful assault on the 2021 Nike Melbourne Marathon with overall top twelve placings in the Nike Marathon, Nike Half Marathon and Sri Lankan Airlines 10km events. Brady Threlfall finished 8th in the Marathon with Nathan Stoate close behind in 12th position. In the Half Marathon, Archie Reid finished 8th with Brian McGinley coming home strongly to finish in 10th position. In the women’s 10km, recent recruit Nikki Lesberg was the sixth female across the line. These are all fantastic efforts with each of these races won by Australian Olympic representatives from the Tokyo 2020 Games. Meanwhile, evergreen Jill Wilkie has broken through the 3 hour barrier for the first time and clocked what we believe is a new over 55 year old Australian Record with a time of 2 hours 56 minutes 9 seconds (yet to be verified). Across the board, there were Personal Bests from so many Bendigo athletes, plenty of cheer and encouragement for one another and. The Melbourne Marathon Festival is typically held in October, but was cancelled in 2020 and then post-poned to December for 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Fears of a roasting hot day were unfounded with perfect running conditions reported by many of our atheltes.