The first round of the Victorian ‘Zone Vs Zone’ competition was held at Aberfeldie Athletics Track in Essendon. The new concept was developed to promote more competitive competition with each region competing against one another. Doncaster; apart of the ‘Red’ zone competed alongside other inner city athletic clubs to take on the western suburbs ‘Yellow’ zone.
Doncaster sprinters got the day off to a flying start by recording the top 7 times in the open mens 200m competition, with Kevin Rassool running a new personal best time of 21.60sec to top the standings. A similar result was seen in the distance hurdles with Fraser Robertson and Steph Larkin topping their respective age groups, while Tom Robertson and Alex Di Medio ran a dead heat to take out first place in the open mens category.
Nick Finch had a real crack in the 800m A race, after leading the first lap around in 54sec, before getting run down in a sprint finish to finish 3rd in 1:55.07 with James D’Alfonso finishing just behind. Connor Gist and Abbey Caldwell had no such problems, with both girls cruising to wins in the open womans and U/14 age groups.
In the field events, it was the throwers that stepped up to the ring, with Doncaster starting the day off well by recording the 3 largest throws in the open mens shotput. Wesley Spargo used his weight-lifting background to throw 10.84m while Natasha Coumaros almost matched her male counterpart after throwing 10.47m in the U/18 girls age group. It was James Joycey that continued to show that he’s one to watch in the future after throwing 13.60m in the U/16 boys shotput and 60.70m in the hammer to record the biggest throws of the day. David Firth, Julia Bryne and Stephanie Ratcliffe also took out wins in the open mens, U/18 and U/16 girls hammer throw respectively.