Auckland's Malcolm Hicks and Canterbury's Callan Moody are expected to renew their acquaintance when the pair line up for the 10km New Zealand road championships in Dunedin today.
The championships will be held on a 2km loop of Forsyth Barr Stadium. Hicks and Moody featured in a ding-dong battle for the national cross-country crown in Hamilton earlier this month, and could both feature again today in the race for the road title.
Hicks, the 2012 national 3000m champion, showed with his finishing kick in the cross-country that he could be the one to beat again. But finishing hot on his heels was Moody, perhaps performing a little below par due to recent surgery to remove a growth from his ear.
Moody, a winner of numerous Otago junior and senior titles before moving to Christchurch for employment, is no stranger to Dunedin conditions, and could well stop the Aucklander from achieving the national cross-country/road double.
Moody recently won the senior men's Canterbury 10km road championship on a course not dissimilar to the one he will run over today, and he has one of the quicker 10km times recorded in New Zealand this year.
Daniel Balchin, formerly of Otago, is another contender. The Canterbury resident won the recent 10km Clyde to Alexandra road race in a time 29sec quicker than that clocked by Moody on the Canterbury course.
Balchin will be buoyed by this victory, and is capable of stepping it up another gear in what is one of the strongest senior men's fields assembled for national distance championship for some time.
Also in the mix are other recent Otago champions, Tony Payne, Tom Hunt and James List, now representing Auckland.
Payne, Hunt and List, along with Hicks, Jono Jackson, Alex Parlane, John Schreuder, Brent Henley and Marc Graham, will lead Auckland in the battle for the teams title with Canterbury, which features Moody, Balchin and another pair of former Otago champions in Oska Inkster-Baynes and Andrew Davidson.
The battle lines have been drawn in the race to lift the senior women's crown, with Otago's hopes lying with Rebekah Greene and Deborah Lynch.
They must overcome Waikato Bay of Plenty representatives Sally Gibbs and Camille Buscomb, Auckland's Georgie Grgec, and Gabrielle O'Rourke and Tina Harris (both Wellington) and Alexandra Williams (Canterbury).
Otago's hopes are high in the junior women's grades with sisters Hanna and Sian English. Sian lines up in the women's under-20 grade and Hanna in the women's under-18 grade.
Otago will also have a strong presence in the masters women's grade, with Louisa Andrew, Shireen Crumpton, Mel Aitken, Sue Cuthbert, Julie Wilson and Val Muskett all medal contenders.
In the 10km walk, Otago and New Zealand No 1 Rozie Robinson is the odds-on favourite to collect a fourth consecutive title, while the fast-improving Julie Edmonds is also a medal prospect.
The events begin at 9am with 5km and 10km road walks followed by age-group races. The senior men's and senior women's 10km races start at 2pm.
