This past weekend saw the running of the 59th Duke Trophy in Brisbane, Australia - the first big competition for the southern hemisphere racing season. This competition is a State teams event, with no heats or finals but round robin style racing in all divisions, with skaters accumulating points for their respective teams.
New South Wales ran out winners from Queensland and Victoria.
A history of the Duke Trophy can be found by clicking here.
Attached is the link to Veterans protocol which has been taken directly from the full protocol of the event, which consisted of 153 races.
Each veteran skated in 11 individual races, with the Queensland and Victorian teams contesting 2 x 3000m relays over the two days.
Veteran skater Michael Attwood was awarded the Colin Coates Spirit of the Duke Trophy award. I have no doubt that Mike was awarded this due to the fact that he was always out the front of the pack hunting for the win and, having raced him in 7 of my 11 races, I can attest to him being a worthy recipient of this award. Well done Mike!
I have attached links to videos from the morning session of day 1. Hopefully by the end of the week, I will have loaded all the races onto the WMST Youtube site.
Race 1 Veteran 1500m
Race 2 Veteran 1500m
Race 13 Veteran 500m
Race 14 Veteran 500m
Race 15 Veteran 500m
Race 28 Veteran 1000m
Race 29 Veteran 1000m
The turn out of 11 veteran skaters for the twelve available spots was fantastic. Dale Blunden from New South Wales has been speed skating for six weeks and decided to fill a vacant spot in the team as he was traveling to the event to allow his son to compete.
Melissa Kah from Victoria stepped up and competed against the men with some positive results. I am expecting to see Mel and her husband Danny (former Australian Olympian) competing at the nationals in Sydney, in October.
Andrea Winzor, also from Victoria, competed in the senior woman's division as all the veteran positions were filled. Hopefully we can create enough interest for a veterans woman's division at the nationals this year.
The veterans/masters scene in Australia is getting stronger with many more skaters not being able to skate due to positions having been filled, as only 4 skaters from each state can compete in each division. With these numbers, it is likely that we could have up to 16 or more skaters for the Nationals in Sydney. Here's to hoping!
Frank
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