Athletics: Runners to tackle revamped Peninsula Relay

Ariki and Caversham will fight it out for the fastest time on the revamped Peninsula Relay road course today.

Caversham started the season in style by winning the Lovelock Relay but Ariki came back strongly to win the longer team races in the Edmond Cup and the Otago cross-country.

The two best male runners in Otago, Dougal Thorburn (Ariki) and Bevan Stevens (Caversham), will face each other on the 4.4km first leg from John Wilson Ocean Dr to the Shiel Hill Tavern.

The other elite runners in the Ariki team are Nathan Baxter, Chris Tipper, Callan Moody and Chris Weddell.

Stevens is backed by Daniel Balchin, Robert Brown, Lyndon Brown and Tony Payne in the Caversham team.

It is a handicap race and the winning team could come from the Otago University mixed team, Ashburton or Leith.

Traffic problems have forced the Athletics Otago cross-country committee to revamp the course by deleting the last two legs from Macandrew Bay back to the city.

They have been replaced with two laps along the road to Allans Beach and back around Papanui Inlet to Portobello.

There has been tinkering around the edges in the past but this is the first time there has been a major change to the race that started in the 1950s.

"The elite runners said it was too dangerous running on the road that is being widened from Macandrew Bay to town," Athletics Otago administrator Margaret Knox said.

The distance of 38.5km is about the same but the long, flat leg from Macandrew Bay to Vauxhall has been replaced by the 7km lap six from Cape Saunders Rd to Portobello.

The three hardest runs on the course are lap three from Centre Rd to Pukehiki (4.7km), the downhill leg from Pukehiki to Portobello (7.1km) and leg six from Cape Saunders to Portobello (7km).

The relay starts at John Wilson Ocean Dr at 11.30am and finishes at Macandrew Bay.