WEIGHTMAN BREAKS AUSTRALIAN ALL-COMERS’ HALF-MARATHON RECORD ON SUNSHINE COAST
- molly510
- Aug 5, 2019
- 1 min read
Lisa Weightman broke the Australian all-comers’ record and picked up an AU$25,000 bonus in taking the Australian half-marathon championship on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast on Sunday (4).
Races between evenly-matched contenders sometimes become cat-and-mouse affairs, but when Weightman took on fellow Australians Sinead Diver and Ellie Pashley at the IAAF Bronze Label road race, the pace was on from gun to tape.
The trio were together until nearing the 20km point, and still in touch with each other there. But it was 40-year-old Weightman who proved the strongest finisher, turning a 12-second margin over Diver into a 21-second win over the final 1.0975km.
Weightman ran 1:08:48, taking 12 seconds off the all-comers’ mark she had set a hundred or so kilometres down the road at the Gold Coast nine years ago. Diver was second in 1:09:08, the only one of the top three not to record a personal best (which stands at 1:08:55) and Pashley third in 1:09:14. It was the best top-three finish in a women’s half marathon on Australian soil.
The men’s race had drama of its own. It, too, had a close finish, just eight seconds separating the first three. Australian-born Kevin Batt, now representing Ireland, won in 1:04:12 from Louis McAfee, 1:04:14, and James Coleman, 1:04:20.
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