The 4th Annual
running of the Ray White Chelsea Gift was held on the 17th December 2011.
In what appears to be a continuing affair and tough conditions for the
backmarkers, athletes were again confronted with a stiff southerly head wind.
The backmarker honours this year went to young gun Jeremy
Ockerby in the Junior category
(U/6 - U/8 - benchmark time: 17.76 sec), and veteran Jake MacDonald ran off the scratch mark in the Senior group (U/9 - U/16
- benchmark time: 13.20sec).
The benchmark times represent the base position for the
handicapper and is the expected event time for each category,
any athlete running under these times effectively signify that
they have run a PB. This year saw the first time that a
repercharge semi-final was conducted. In past events typically two
semi-finals are created after the heats, this year an additional repercharge semi was held in each category. The repercharge
event provided opportunity for those that just missed a
qualifying final place to continue in the Gift, and actually resulted
in athletes who had not automatically qualified gain a spot in the
Final.
Senior Category
A total of 72 athletes competed in the senior category of the
Gift this year. Daniel Hendricks got a terrific start and backed
up his fastest semi-final time in winning the Senior
Gift in a time of 12.45s, with Jonathan Mastorakos just 1/100 of
a second behind in second place, followed by the fast finishing
race backmarker Jayden Rozairo in third. Just 0.43 seconds
covered the whole field in one of the tightest races to date.
Junior Category
Starting with 56 athletes competing in the Junior category, the
race was won by front-marker Thomas Evangelista, with race
and event back-marker and early favourite (after posting the
fastest semi-final time) Jeremy Ockerby
finishing in second place two years in a row, with Lachlan Smith
rounding out the podium places coming in third.
