Category: Sport

RUNNING enthusiasts will have yet another reason to don their sneakers later this year when the inaugural Denmark Half Marathon kicks off at Lights Beach.

The September 22 event is being put together by the Denmark Running Club with support from the Shire of Denmark and will offer 21.2km, 10km and 2km distance trails for all ages and abilities.

Denmark Running Club President Rebecca Gleeson said while the official route of the marathon is yet to be confirmed, it will take participants through parts of the Munda Biddi and Wilderness Ocean Walk (WOW) trails.

“The WOW trail is a very hilly, twisty course and runners will benefit from the challenge of tackling it in such a spectacular location,” she said.

“We’re hoping participants from far and wide can come and enjoy these beautiful trails … it’s an opportunity for runners in the region to try some-thing a little bit different.”

Ms Gleeson said the event would complement rather than compete with the well-established Elleker Half Marathon, which celebrated its 24th year running in June.

She said the idea to organise an event out of Denmark was informed by a recent survey of the Denmark Running Club’s members.

“We just decided, based on that survey, that we’d organise one big event that our members could aspire to,” Ms Gleeson said.

“This is very much the trial run, pardon the pun. I think there’s such an appetite for different runnning events these days.”

The Denmark Half Marathon will take place more than a month after the Perth Half Marathon and a few weeks before the Perth Running Festival on October 6.

According to Ms Gleeson, the best way to prepare is to just “start running”.

“We run training four times a week and anyone is welcome to join. It’s a very non-competitive, really friendly and supportive club,” she said of the Denmark Running Club.

“It’s a matter of just incrementally building on your distance so that by the time the race comes you’re ready for it.”

Anyone interested in joining the group or signing up for the half marathon can visit www.denmarkrunningclub.org.au or the run’s Eventbrite page.

Ms Gleeson said people with questions can contact her on 0412 802 608.

FEARS that junior cricket in Albany could be discontinued have been all but laid to rest with a proposed merger of the sport’s junior and senior representative bodies likely to go ahead.

Committee members from the Albany Junior Cricket Association (AJCA) and the Albany Cricket Association (ACA) are set to convene for a special resolution meeting on July 22 to discuss the prospect of amalgamating into one organisation.

The future of the junior sport was thrown into doubt in mid June after the AJCA failed to find volunteers to replace its outgoing executive committee (‘Cricket future in doubt’, 20 June).

Sport and Recreation Consultant Kim Buttfield, who has been employed by the Western Australia Cricket Association to conduct a review of the sport in the Great Southern, said the talk of a merger came at a fortunate time.

“The AJCA had been struggling to find volunteers … and the senior association to a lesser degree was also struggling just finding people to step up into those governance roles,” she said.

“It’s just taken a while for everyone to come together to realise this is actually a great opportunity to bring the two groups together.”

Ms Buttfield said she was “very certain” the merger would proceed, adding the two bodies would work to finalise it before the start of the next season of junior cricket in September or October.

“The WACA is very keen to support them. They are going to be providing some financial support as well as some governance guidance,” she said.

“Hopefully everything will flow fairly smoothly.”

ACA President Terry Eaton said the upcoming discussions would provide clarity about the pathways available to local junior and senior players.

“At the moment people don’t know whether they should be in junior or in senior or how to go about getting from one to the other,” Mr Eaton said.

“That’s why we need a powerful board to direct cricket overall and go from there. I think at the end what we need is a good outcome for cricket.”

He added that while decisions about the exact structure of a new organisation were “still in the melting pot,” he expected it to consist of a single executive with a couple of portfolios for junior cricket.

“I think where they’re heading is towards a combined executive that would oversee the organisation and then sitting underneath that would be two operational arms, one for the juniors and one for the seniors,” Ms Buttfield said.

“At the end of it everyone’s really wanting the same thing, to grow cricket and to continue to support a great game that’s pretty important in our community.”

Outgoing AJCA President Jackie Boyce was contacted for comment.

WHEN Albany student Hayden Mills first learned he had been selected for the state cross-country team late last month, he thought he was getting in trouble.

On a day some time after the 14-year-old placed first representing Bethel Christian School at an interschool cross-country run, his mother Linda Mills called him over to the computer.

“She asked me to read something out to Dad in an email that she got and I was thinking straight away it was from the teachers saying I was in trouble,” Hayden said.

“Then I read it out and it said they had a spot for me in the state team.

“Dad was like good job and everything and they’ve really supported me through the whole thing.”

Instead of receiving a grounding, Hayden will be jetting to Wollongong in New South Wales in late August to compete at the School Sports 2019 Interstate Cross Country competition.

The four-day event will see young people between the ages of 10 and 19 on both male and female state teams from around the country race it out on long distance trails for the top honours.

“It’s exciting but I’m a bit nervous at the same time,” Hayden told the Weekender during a break from hockey training last Thursday.

“I’ve always dreamed of getting into the state side and then representing Western Australia. I want to see where that takes me and then go from there.”

Hayden has been getting up at 5:30am every Tuesday to train at an oval near North Road in preparation for the competition.

The year nine student said he challenged himself with long distance laps, interval training and hill training during his hour-and-a- half morning workouts.

He said he also played hockey with five different teams, including the 9/10s, under 18s, Men’s B, Men’s A in Mount Barker, and an Albany team that recently competed in Bunbury.

“Hockey and cross country complement each other a lot. Being able to be really fit and run gives you the upper hand like crazy, you get a crazy advantage,” he said.

“I don’t know what it is but I just like to run, it’s almost like when I’m running I feel like it’s made for me.”

Sport has always played an important role in the Mills household.

Hayden’s father coaches hockey during the week, while his six sisters and younger brother all play either netball, basketball or hockey.

Great Southern Grammar students Jana Kriek, Oliver Camins and Charlie Hick were also selected for the WA Cross Country team.

They will join Hayden on the track when the interstate competition kicks off on August 22.

TENNIS venues throughout the lower Great Southern last week became the first regional facilities to be audited as part of a statewide assessment conducted by Tennis West.

Representatives from the state’s governing tennis body visited a total of 12 venues in Albany, Tingledale, Napier and elsewhere in the region on Monday and Tuesday, before moving onto another 14 facilities in the Mid West.

Tennis West Places to Play Manager Graeme Hall said the aim was to gather information about the condition of all available tennis facilities and that the audits in Western Australia were being conducted alongside similar assessments across the country.

“The idea is that we will be able to produce, in the long term, what we call a State of Play report and we can do that by local authority or by region or even by club,” he explained.

“At this stage we’re just putting it all together … so we’ll be able to draw on this data for a whole range of information going forward.”

Mr Hall joined Tennis Australia’s Head of Places Steve Marquis in Albany early last week to speak at a forum about the future of tennis in the state and the Great Southern.

During his presentation, Mr Marquis outlined the “three elements” of the audit process.

He said the audits would assess the “hard, physical infrastructure” of each venue, the participation records and the operational and managerial aspects underpinning the facilities.

“It’s a very similar process to what football and cricket have done over the last couple of years as well,” Mr Hall said.

“We really received some positive feedback from the clubs we visited and the clubs are really happy to assist and provide that information.

“It’s been a really positive engagement.”

According to research conducted by Tennis West and referenced at last week’s forum, metropolitan clubs differ somewhat from regional clubs in the challenges they face.

While metropolitan clubs have cited concerns about the costs of maintaining courts, particularly grass courts, regional clubs have had to deal with transient communities and related population decline.

“I’ve been to clubs today that had 80 members but are down to four or five,” Mr Hall told the audience of around 70 attendants.

He said metro clubs also struggled to attract and retain numbers because “people are changing the way they use their disposable dollar and free time”.

Mr Marquis added that when it came to participation levels, there was a distinction to be made between tennis club member numbers and visitor numbers.

While membership numbers may be declining, more and more people are looking to play casually.

The Tennis West audit comes as the tennis clubs and tennis community in Albany debate the possibility of building a regional venue for the sport.

At the same forum, Mayor Dennis Wellington told the crowd that the venue would not be built without club and community support (‘Tennis hub needs support,’ 20 June).

City of Albany Acting Executive Director of Community Services Nathan Watson said the audit “will add value to the current feasibility study [for the venue] and any future business case developments”.

JUNIOR cricket in Albany could soon come to an end if replacements for outgoing Albany Junior Cricket Association committee members are not found soon.

None of the attendants at the AJCA annual general meeting early last week put up their hands to fill the roles of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer for the next season.

Current President Jackie Boyce said without a committee to coordinate things like fundraisers and competitions, the sport was unlikely to continue.

“If the people want to play cricket and there’s no opportunity for them, then they’ll just play another sport or they won’t get to fulfil that desire,” she said.

“That has a flow-on effect. If the kids aren’t playing junior cricket then they’re not going to grow up to play senior cricket.”

Ms Boyce served as the AJCA’s secretary for two years before taking on the top spot.

She said like herself, most of the committee were leaving due to “personal reasons”.

“For me, three years on the executive is enough and it’s time for new ideas and new people to get involved,” she explained.

“People are not staying in those executive positions as long, maybe because there is a lot more frameworks that you have to fit in with.

“There’s a lot more paperwork and liability which also makes it more time consuming and people just don’t have as much time.”

Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington began his own cricket career as a junior and said it was “a shame” the AJCA was struggling.

“There’s a lot of enjoyment in sport. It’s a big part of our lives,” he said.

“Unfortunately it’s a fact of life these days that you’ve got to have volunteers to run these things.”

He said volunteer organisations often experienced “revolving situations” where parent committee members whose children outgrew a junior sport left as they did.

“I think the solution is basically with the parents of the children that are playing at the time,” he said.

The AJCA’s conundrum comes as the State Government moves to expand cricket in the Great Southern.

Two forums exploring the future direction of junior and senior cricket in the region are set to run in Albany and Katanning at the end of the month.

They will be coordinated by the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries (DLGSC) alongside the Western Australian Cricket Association and WA Country Cricket.

Minister for Sport and Recreation Mick Murray said the events would provide a “terrific resource” for the AJCA and “clearly comes at a very timely point for the club as it looks to attract new members”.

“I’d encourage anyone who is interested in junior cricket to step up and nominate for one of the vacant AJCA committee positions,” he said.

“Volunteering in such grassroots sports groups can be a rewarding experience, both for the volunteers and the junior players.”

Mr Murray noted the DLGSC’s online resource Every Club Hub could provide guidance on all things related to running local sports clubs.

“Personally, I believe sport is an important, character-building tool for children where they can gain an understanding of the concept of rules and boundaries early on in life,” he said.

The AJCA will host an extraordinary meeting at the cricket pavilion at 6pm on Monday July 1, with the hope of finding the replacements.

The findings from the Albany and Katanning forums are expected to be available for review around the middle of next month.