Weekend Previews: West Highland Way; SUPERteams; West 10K

Thursday 16th June 2016

The iconic Ron Hill West Highland Way Race, the longest permitted event in the scottishathletics Calendar, takes place this weekend.

This year 200 runners will set off from Milngavie, just north of Glasgow, at 1am on Saturday morning with the simple aim of reaching the finish in Fort William within the cut-off time of 35 hours.

There is an international flavour among the stand out runners for the men. American Hal Koerner, from Oregon is a previous winner of two of America’s classic 100 milers the Hardrock 100 (in 2012) and the Western States (2009).

Kris Brown, from California, although experienced at shorter 50 /100kmile distances could well figure, too, as could young Hungarian Adam Zohoran.

Leading the home challenge will be Croy’s James Stewart (VP Glasgow) who after good results at shorter ultra’s and victor at the Glenmore 24 hour last year, is running his first West Highland Way. For the women, Bath’s GB ultra trail international Lizzie Wraith, fourth at the recent 53-mile Highland Fling looks favourite.

Scottish interest coming from Garscube’s Nicola Adams Henry and Fife AC’s Morgan Windram–Geddes. They were fifth and seventh respectively in the Highland Fling and both are running their first West Highland Way.

Three times winner Rosie Bell( Strathaven ) as usual will always be a contender, as will Caroline Mckay and Lorna McMillan.

Race Director Ian Beattie said: ‘We are very likely to see a new winner of this year’s race, as Paul Giblin (winner for the last three years) is not taking part this time.

‘Despite Paul’s absence both the men’s and ladies’ races have very strong fields, and it will be fascinating to see how the race at the front end develops.

‘Everyone who finishes this race is a winner, though, and I can’t wait to see it all unfold over the weekend; as always I am sure we will witness many amazing and inspirational performances throughout the field.’

You can follow live tracking of the event from the Sport Ident site. Twitter updates ‪@WHWRace ‪#whwrace‪

With thanks to Adrian Stott

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Timetable and team pools for Saturday

SUPERteams is a scottishathletics event for our youngest athletes and it is coming up on Saturday at Dam Park stadium in Ayr – with more than 300 youngsters ready to savour the occasion this year.

And now we have the timetable and pools on the Events page in order to help team managers, parents and helpers in the countdown to Saturday.

Teams of four boys or four girls compete in four events during the course of the day. Those events are a 75m sprint, turbo javelin throw, long jump and then a 4 x 100m relay.

The whole idea of the SUPERteams is as a development event for our very youngest athletes – having fun while learning events and competing as teams within a club framework.

It is always a great day for the youngsters and once again there was an encouraging response from our clubs to this event – with more than 80 teams entered. The timetable on Saturday runs from 10am to 4.05pm.

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The Brian Goodwin Memorial 10k Road Race – and West District Champs – is organised by Bellahouston Harriers and will take place on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Starting and finishing at Cartha Queen’s Park Rugby club (92 Dumbreck Road, Glasgow, G41 4SN), the race is held on a fast and flat two loop course inside the scenic grounds of Pollok Park.

Since its inception in 2011, the Brian Goodwin 10k has become one of the most popular 10k races on the circuit with nearly 400 runners coming from across Scotland to take part in last year’s race. This year’s race will also include the West District 10k Championships.

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Tags: Ayr, Bellahouston Harriers, SuperTEAMS, West 10k, West Highland Way race