News Archive 2020

Jack Harper ran a very good 200m in 23.47, a big PB...then did a great long jump, 4.96...congrats Jack.
Harry Shaw surprised with a 5.30 long jump with no practice. Harry also recorded a PB in his 200m with a 24.66, he is a very versatile athlete.

Ben Morrison ran his best ever sprint recording 26.76 in his 200m, not bad for a middle distance man!! a massive 2 second PB.

There is still time to get on board, register for some summer athletics, build your fitness and support the team!

Athletics Victoria has structured a 10 round program for the summer months. The program has been significantly modified in order to satisfy Government COVID-19 restrictions. Many events are not catered for at present.

This will be a summer we will not forget but at least, at this stage, we will have some competition over some events.
Provided there are no new breakouts, the first six competition dates are scheduled as follows:

Please note the first four rounds are on Sundays.
 
We intend to update the program as more information comes to hand and hopefully COVID-19 restrictions ease further. Thankfully the easing of restrictions on Sunday, 22nd November will assist.
 
We hope to see a solid attendance at the first round as we target some serious PBs over the 600m. If you want to have a crack...get your registration in.

The Committee has been working away at developing a new uniform. This project gained traction following our joining with the Old Ivanhoe Grammarians' Association (OIGA) and the desire to display the badge of OIGA.

This presented as a convenient opportunity as in recent years, a number of club members and past members had mentioned their preference of our original uniform and bolder colours.

The Committee looked at options with the desire to return to our original colours as far as possible and develop a design that was a closer resemblance to the original uniform featuring the historic maltese cross.

The final artwork is shown below. OIGA badge on right breast, the maltese cross will be a fraction larger than shown in this proof.
We are delighted to be able to embrace the past and show ourselves as distinctly "Ivanhoe". I am sure all the older members will be very pleased. A straw poll of our younger athletes at training has given a tick of approval to this next step in our evolution.

Our Secretary and technical wiz, John Edney is hosting our Trivia Night once again this year.

To all life members, members and the broader Ivanhoe Harriers community, you are invited to the club's annual trivia night that will this year be held online. This means that this year your team can work together from multiple locations be that different suburbs, states or countries.

Given how crazy this year has been and the fact that under the current and indeed the upcoming restrictions an in-person event sadly won't occur this year, the committee would like to bring everyone together for a social event anyway.

The trivia night will take place on Saturday, 14th November 2020 at 7pm for a 7:30pm start.

To register simply visit www.triviascore.com and click the link at the top of that page referring to the Ivanhoe Harriers trivia night.

Upon clicking on that link you be directed to a page that will allow you to purchase entry tickets and raffle tickets. You will then receive an automated email that will contain your tickets as well as provide you with a 'Zoom' link that you can use to sign in to the trivia night on the 14th of November.

Please fell free to call John Edney on 0407 877 232 or email at john@edneycelebrations.com.au should you have any questions or queries or are able to assist by donating prizes to the event.

Also, please ensure you have Zoom downloaded on your computer or mobile device prior to the evening and that someone in your team is able to have a separate browser or device handy to access the online answer sheet.

Super 6 Handicap Competition or “The COVID Cup”

In order to try to provide some form of competition to compensate for the lost cross country season, Barry Greig and Jeff Franklin contrived this event.

Barry will calculate handicaps for the six events which will conclude prior to Christmas. The events being 400m, 800m, 1000m, 1500m, 3000m, 5000m.
The events can be run singly, or in pairs, or if allowed small groups.

The first event was a 1000m time trial which was contested by 16 members of the Club.
Sami Rowe was the winner of this first event beating her handicap time by 38 seconds, second was Alex Linke with a very fine run of 2:55 beating his handicap time by 25 seconds.
Fastest time for this event was David Greig who ran a very good 2:45, also beating his handicap time by 20 seconds.

A nice pic of Sami Rowe being presented with the chocolates for her well-deserved win in the Super 6 Handicap race over 1000m. Older sister Ella also ran very well. With the old coach presenting the prize.

The reintroduction of lock-down measures means there is no longer group training at Chelsworth Park for the next six weeks.

During the past few months of COVID-19 restrictions the team has been training to a very high standard at Chelsworth Park.

The picture below shows 4 of the boys doing some 400m intervals on the grass, setting a very fast pace.

Left to right: Josh Philip, Thomas Langdon, David Greig and Harry Shaw.

Due to the COVID-19 restrictions our AGM was held via Zoom on Wednesday, 24th June 2020, and was successful without any problems arising. Many thanks to Secretary, John Edney, for chairing the meeting which was dealt with quickly and efficiently.

The Annual Report was distributed ahead of the meeting so everyone was well informed beforehand and the quorum was achieved as required.

As expected, the election of office bearers went smoothly with the outgoing Committee offering themselves up for re-election. And a big welcome to new Committee member Glenn Morrison.

Committee for season 2020-2021 is as follows:

Given the present circumstances our Presentation of Trophies will be held later in the year when we are in a position to get together and enjoy a social night. We will advise a date in due course.

Currently, due to COVID-19, Athletics Victoria has not been able to commit to a start date for any cross country activity. It is hoped that we may see a couple of races in July, we wait in hope.

In the meantime training has resumed at Chelsworth Park, limited to groups of ten to comply with Government policy.

The Coronavirus impact on sport will be huge this year. At this stage, the Cross Country season has been delayed until 31st May 2020 and in all likelihood, the delayed timeframe may be extended. The impact on new membership registrations will therefore be massive given little or no competition.

The Club's annual 6km Handicap race was held on Saturday 22nd March. This year we had 20 runners trying their best to beat the handicapper. As usual Barry Greig did a fantastic job trying to identify the smokies but a couple of youngsters got under our guard.

First across the line was Zac Philip in 27:45, closely followed by young Will Franklin with an actual time of 28:58.
Fastest time was David Greig in a new course record of 19:47.

Times and placings as follows:

Congratulations to all participants, it was very competitive.
A number of the boys had trained very hard on the preceding Tuesday and Thursday so were a little tired. The times emphasise the quality of David Greig’s run which was 5 seconds quicker the Tom Langdon’s record run from the previous year.

A group photo of all the participants.

The playoffs mark the end of summer competition as we head towards the end of the competition year, the 31st March 2020.
The season has given us confidence in the future.

Our Cross Country efforts in the winter were outstanding for a small Club and resulted in promotion to Division 4 for next season. Equally pleasing, our performances during the track and field season resulted in a 2nd placing on the Ladder and the opportunity to contest the Premiership for our Division. Despite missing the Premiership, we have achieved promotion to Division 4 for next season which gives us great satisfaction.

Also, the AGM and Presentation of Trophies for this season is scheduled for Wednesday night, 20^th May 2020, we hope to see a good turnout.

The Championships were held over two week ends from 28 February to 8 March. On the second weekend competition was relocated from Lakeside Stadium to Duncan McKinnon Reserve due to F1 Grand Prix commitments at Albert Park.

Under 20 Men’s 5000m: David Greig 13th in the final with a whopping PB of 15:48.96. David now has some really good times from 200m out to 5000m so we are seeing a very versatile athlete developing. Well done David in only your 2nd attempt at 5000m.

Under 18 Men’s 400m Hurdles: Harry Shaw 6th in the final in 61.89
(Note: Harry sprained his ankle a week before so could not train, bad luck Harry but a great season overall.)

Under 15 Men’s 800m: Jal Wishart ran 2:17.45 - He was placed 4th in his heat and 9th overall- missing out on the final by one placing.

Under the new system introduced by Athletics Victoria this season, the two clubs who finish first and second on the ladder receive automatic promotion to the next higher grade. In addition, those two Clubs compete for the Premiership in one competition playoff.

However, the weakness in the rules is there is no limit to the number of athletes who may compete for a Club in this match provided they have competed 4 times during the season. This of course means that Clubs with a larger membership have an advantage before the competition starts. We have protested about this unfairness but to no avail.

Under those circumstances, we competed against Dandenong/Springvale for the Premiership and unfortunately were not quite good enough on the day.
Final scores:

The effort put in by the Team was exceptional, we certainly have a great deal of talent developing, at one stage during the afternoon it was thought we might pull off a victory. In the end, our talent was not quite enough to overcome the size advantage of our competitor.

Individual results and Photos

A big thank you to all the wonderful people who donated their time at the sausage sizzle on Sunday 9th February 2020. Having such a large group of volunteers was a bonus as most were only required for 2-3 hours which eases the workload on everyone.

As we predicted, the sales volume at Fairfield was not nearly as busy as Northland, unfortunately we had no say in the move to Fairfield.
However, the Club made a tidy profit of $566.00 so we have requested additional opportunities for later in the year.

Barbecue setup and waiting for the first customer.

We placed 4th in our Division in the last round of Track & Field before the finals. The team performed really well, scoring sufficient points to hold on to our second place on the ladder, which means automatic promotion to Division 4 next season.

Individual results and Final ladder

Harry leaping over a 400m hurdle. More photos...