Cross Country

By Richard Sykes | Posted: Wednesday June 21, 2023

Matthew Bolter and Jake Owen put their hands up to participate in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country after an extremely dominant local season this year, winning every senior event they participated in.

They have competed at this level before and knew that it was going to be a challenge.

Matt started the race hard trying to live with the top runners and ran his fastest 2 km of the season, unfortunately this made the remaining 4 km very hard. He still finished an extremely respectable 32nd with a time of 20min 49 seconds in a field of over 200 of the top athletes in the country.

Jake had a more controlled approach to the race pacing himself well throughout. His race management here gave him the great result of 20th with a time of 20 minutes 29 seconds. In the head to head with Jake and Matt this tied them up, highlighting just how tight the competition between these two terrific young athletes has been throughout their time at Otago Boys' High School. On the Sunday they also participated in the mixed relay with Katherine Lund (OGHS) and Zara Geddes (Columba College). They finished 2nd which was a terrific result over the short course event (2 x 2km legs) coming in a mere 2 seconds behind the winners.

This has been my first season of cross country and I would just like to thank both of these young men for the help they have provided to me and their teammates throughout this season.

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