Corina Corina, Loves Woodlands Park So

By Brian Marantelli 26 June 2012

Corina Kapusta showed her liking for the Woodlands course with a strong win in the Independent Signs 10km at Greenvale on Sunday. The race doubled as the Victorian Cross Country League’s 80^th anniversary celebration and was attended by many past members with lunch provided by the social club. Presidents Ted Paulin, John Cleland, Dean Paulin, Jim McLure and Les Mollard were present to help celebrate the occasion by cutting a cake.

Corina, who regularly trained at Woodlands in the past, hit the lead inside the last kilometre to hold off the fast finishing Eric Sapac, with Ashley Snowden finishing third. This season Corina has raced consistently and recently finished an excellent third in the prestigious Eaglehawk to Bendigo Classic. She also took home the fastest female award (39:48). Carl Fannon from the Colin Davis stable collected his first VCCL prize money with a handy fourth just ahead of the race backmarker David Spence. David ran the fastest time (35:03) with other time awards going to Sean Quilty (36:56) and David Haigh (37:13). The novice award went to Santhy Olowoniyi, also having her first season with the VCCL. Making the top ten for the first time this season after a long frustrating period of injuries was Sean Quilty in tenth place. Tony Parsons, David Haigh and Colin Davis also finished in the top ten to continue their good form. After running a great second at Bendigo, Tony Rendina was unable to maintain his good form, although he was still able to finish in ninth place.

This week’s race is at Lilydale and is a handicap 5km event in an ideal setting around the Lillydale lake. The race was to be the “Tony Moran Legend Handicap” but unfortunately Tony will be overseas for the race and so his event has been moved to the 8km at Jells Park on August 5^th. The VCCL committee have decided to name Sunday’s race in honour of one of our “unsung heroes” from the social club, so this Sunday we will be conducting the Yvonne Callaghan Thank You 5km. As mentioned, race fourteen on August 5^th will now be conducted at Jells Park, after being unable to secure the “bridges” this year as a venue.

The Murchison Bus still has a few empty seats and for a modest fee of $25 you can enjoy a comfortable ride, food, drink and the same old boring stories as in past years.

Finishing up on the Woodlands event: Although unable to finish in the prizemoney, Wayne Davis scooped the pool by collecting first prize in the raffle, a washing basket filled with “goodies”. This win is timely as it’s only two short years ago, at Lilydale, that Wayne was able to secure his other raffle winfall, the much discussed canned peaches. However we can report that after trying to unscrew the canned peaches for the last two years without success he can now move onto the washing basket. Although Wayne did ask instructions as to how to connect the washing basket to the electricity.

Many thanks must go to Leanne Callaghan (Independent Signs) and her co-sponsors Alan McCullen, Hugo Sarpa and Dennis Hughes for their continuous support of the Woodlands 10km event.

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