The girls chasing Awatapu College sisters Kara and Zia Macdermid didn't even see their clean pair of heels in the Manawatū secondary schools' cross-country, last Wednesday.
On a new track which included a water feature and log jumps at Massey University, world junior championships runner Kara won the senior girls' under-19 race over 4km by almost two minutes.
She had quality athletes in pursuit, New Zealand triathlete Jaimee Leader and quality cyclist Elizabeth Stannard.
That was the same order in which they finished last year in the intermediate race at Foxton.
Zia was running only 3km but she won the intermediate under-16 girls' event by more than a minute from Jharna Melbourne and Grace Burmeister, also the same order as in last year's junior cross-country.
The venue was shifted from the usual sand-dune course adjacent to Manawatū College at Foxton because the national schools' cross-country will be staged at Massey on June 21. More than 340 runners took part, a record by about 100.
All of the six able-bodied categories were won by the two big schools, Palmerston North Boys' High School and Palmerston North Girls' High School.
However, Feilding High School's Bryce Hirschberg won the longest race, the senior boys' 6km, in a sprint finish against Boys' High's Niam Macdonald. Hirschberg had been third last year.
Boys' High took all three podium places in the intermediate boys' 4km, won by Carlos Lopez-Lozano by 20 seconds. His schoolmate Harrison Porrit won the junior boys' under-14 race while Nga Tawa Diocesan School's Georgina Wallace won the junior girls' 3km.
The sole wheelchair athlete was Freyberg High School's Ghana Neupane who raced a separate 1km route.
Source: Manawatū Standard
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