AV Shield was held at Nunawading on 14 November 2015, with the memory of John Lewin everpresent in all club member’s minds.

With the approval of the Lewin family, each athlete wore a black armband a mark of respect for the contribution of John over many years and to his son Simon Lewin, a Life Member of the Club and his grandsons Will Lewis and Angus Birrell who are also club members. Deepest sympathy to the extended Lewin family from all at St. Kevin’s Athletics Club.

Back Row: Luke Goodman, Phil Borg, Jeremy Weekes, Chris Milne, Ned O’Brien, Chris Hibbert, Xavier Chapman

Front Row: Shaun Hargreaves, Steve Fabris, Conor Fry

Congratulations to the following 4 athletes who made their debuts for the club this week: Matt Dinan, Stefano Mazzocca, Hugh Pentland and Daniel Webb.

Highlights were:-

Michael Romanin being fastest over 200m for the day running 22.38

Dylan Johnson’s massive 14.14m Triple Jump, taking him to second all time for SKAAC.

Steve Fabris cracking the 2 minute barrier for 800m running 1:58.1, paced by Australia’s best, Alex Rowe.

Ned O’Brien racking up 3 PB’s for the day

Hibbo & Fab unable to be separated in the High Jump 1.52 each.

St. Kevin’s winning the Open Mens 4×400 in 3:31.8

Lucas Webb jumping 1.57 in the High Jump

Phil Borg winning the Under 16 200m in 24.03

Matt Dinan coming a narrow 2nd in the Under 14 200m in 29.41

Results can be found here:

AVShield-White-Round-04-Graded-Results

The entire St. Kevin’s Athletics Club mourns the loss of John Lewin.

Deepest sympathy is extended to club life member Simon Lewin on the loss of his father, and to club members Will Lewis and Angus Birrell on the loss of their grandfather.

SKAAC is delighted to announce that Justin Rinaldi was awarded Honorary Life Membership of the St. Kevin’s Old Collegians Association (SKOCA) at last night’s SKOCA AGM. The SKOCA will publically present Justin with this honour at the SKOCA Annual Dinner in June 2016.

Please see below for some further information relating to Justin’s contribution to our club:

On the track, Justin has been a multiple State Champion and one-time National Champion at 800m, famously and proudly wearing the SKAAC singlet to victory during the 2006 Victorian State Championships held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Justin was amongst Victoria’s best championship performers over a 10 year period from the mid-1990’s to the mid-2000’s.

He has been a fierce competitor ranking in the Top 10 performances for SKAAC from distances from 100m to 3000m Steeplechase, for which he is the current club record holder at 9:20.2. A small excerpt of his achievements on the track are listed below:-

• 1990/1991 Member of St. Kevin’s Under 19 State Record 4 x400m Relay team. (3:14.6)
• 1990/1991 Member of St. Kevin’s Under 19 & 20 State Record 4 x800m Relay team. (7:40.72)
• 1996/1997 800m National Champion. (1:47.78)
• 1995/1996 800m Victorian State Champion. (1:47.89)
• 2005/2006 800m Victorian State Champion. (1:50.27)

In season 1992/1993, Justin as a junior athlete, was awarded the Syd James Trophy recognising him as the SKAAC Senior Club Champion, an amazing feat.

Justin also served the SKAAC Committee during the 2002/2003 season.

However, over the last 6 years Justin has gained national and international exposure, as coach and mentor to current joint Australian 800m record holder and Old Collegian Alex Rowe (2010). The time, effort and finance sacrifice personally taken by Justin to guide Alex has been incredible and culminated in the amazing run by Alex in Monaco in 2014 in equalling the Australian 800m record at 1:44.40.

Justin is presently committed to establishing a middle distance coaching group of excellence, attracting athletes from across the country to train with him with the aim of maximising the number of 800m athletes that are selected in the 800m for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Nearly everyone in the Australian Athletics community acknowledges Justin as St. Kevin’s “through and through”. On 11th November 2015, the St. Kevin’s Old Collegians formally recognised Justin’s immense contribution to all things St. Kevin’s Athletics by awarding him Honorary Life Membership.

Well done and thanks Justin.

2015/2016 SKAAC Committee

APS Athletics Championship 2015 (October 17^th)

The headlines will read St. Kevin’s win the APS Athletics Premiership, SKC make it 5 in a row, 8 is great for SKC Aths! These tell only a small part of the greatness achieved on Saturday 17th October 2015.

The bullet points highlights would read:

• Record 21 out of 23 A Grade Finals on Heats Day.
• SKC 2^nd Highest Point Total 461.5 (best 463.5 in 2013)
• Record 93.5 point win over second place Xavier College
• APS Record Open 4x400m Relay 3.19.64 (previous best 3.22.01)
• SKC Equal Record 12 APS Winning events, including: (SKAAC Clubman) Phillip Borg U-16 100m and 200m, (SKAAC Clubman) Will Lewis U-16 1500m, (SKAAC Clubman) Max Gray U-17 High Jump, (SKAAC Clubman) Harry Livens U-15 Triple Jump, Jack Anderson Open 400m and 800m, Jack Mahony U-14 100m and 800m, Murray Griffin, Daniel Doyle, James Hill, and Jack Mahony U-14 4 x 100m Relay, Campbell Smart, Sam Forbes, Owen Rush and Phillip Borg U-16 4 x 100m, (SKAAC Clubman) Conor Fry, Ryan Losty, Jack Anderson and Tuth Jok Open 4 x 400m.

In needs to be noted that each of these winners has an amazing story to tell, the most common aspect of them all is that each athlete started their SKC athletic career not as winners, some not in A grade and others not even in the team. Each has worked to develop themselves and strive for continued improvement.

Special mention to the SKC Captain Jack Anderson. His efforts on the day were outstanding, winning the first event of the day the Open 800m in a PB 1.55.11, then backing up to run two sub 50 second 400m to win the Open 400m and then 4x400m. The historians are still searching through the record books but it is believed that this is the first time the Open 800/400 has been achieved by any athlete in the 110 year history of the APS Athletics!

However the winning of a single event does not make a premiership side. Rather it is the size, dedication and desire of an entire athletics squad that wins schools a premiership. So the real story of how greatness was achieved by St. Kevin’s comes in the sheer number of students competing each and every week on the training track (including all through the holidays) and weekend competition. The student that worked to lift his performance and motivated his team mate to do the same is a premiership player. Which is why the premiership photo, that will sit proudly amongst the other great teams in the school pavilion, will record a team of over 75 athletes for the 53 contested events. They did not all win an event, some did not get to compete on the day but they all contributed and thus all finished the 2015 Premiership race as winners!

What a fantastic day of athletics Round 2 provided for all at SKAAC.

We were greeted by a fantastic setting after over an hour travel time, at Mt. Evelyn on a fairly new track.

The highlight was clearly the 27 athletes that were present to represent SKAAC. Special mention to the athletes that made their debuts for the club

Massimo Acquaro, Chris Milne, Chris Hibbert, Daniel Martin and significantly two athletes from Loreto Mandeville, Alex Jago & Astrid Ratcliffe.

It was a “back to SKAAC” day in many regards with the return of Tamma and Shaun Hargreaves and the mood around the tent was something to behold.

Plenty of highlights on the track (see results & ladders attached), some notables…

• Women Under 16 200m Astrid Ratcliffe 28.55 & Alex Jago 30.77
• Jack Holden 8:36.1 3000m (9th All time for SKAAC)
• APS Premiership star Connor Fry running 23.32 for 200m to be SKAAC’s fastest for the day.
• Tristan Day running a massive PB in the Under 16 300m of 9:53.2
• Jason Kozica wunning the 3000m Walk in 15:01
• Tom Scroggie 2:21.5 800m (PB by 14sec)
• Joel Imbriano picking up 3 PB’s
• Massimo Acquaro getting super close to the Under 15 200m club record of 24.4s (held by Tamma) running 24.67s
• Tamma having a couple of close attempts at the Open Shot record.
• Phil Borg winning the Under 16 200m in 23.49.
• Shaun Hargreaves winning the Open Hammer with 31.06 (7th all time for SKAAC)
• Hugo Goodman & Tom Scroggie stepping up to Under 16 for the 4x200m relay.

Team results were:

2nd Mens Div 1

4th Mens Under 18

4th Mens Under 16

2nd Mens Under 14

Graded results

2015_2016_AVShield-White-Round-02-Graded-Results

Ladders for the round

2015_2016_AVShield-White-Round-02-Team-Scores