A young University of Otago women's team set a record in the Lovelock Relay at the University Oval on Saturday, finishing just ahead of Hill City in one of the most memorable races in the event's 73-year history.
The Otago University senior women's team of Hannah Newbould, Andrea Peat, Grace Fursdon and Barbara Roy narrowly beat race favourite and defending champion Hill City, to win the senior women's title in a race-record time of 19min 24sec.
It was its first senior Lovelock title since 1998.
Hill City beat the women's record of 19min 46sec, set in 1989 last year, recording 19min 30sec, and a university team with an average age of 18 and a-half slashed it by another 6sec.
Hill City was also under the 19min 30sec mark, recording 19min 25sec for second place.
Adding spice to the senior women's contest was the head-to-head race between junior internationals Rebekah Greene (Hill City) and Newbould on the first lap.
Neither athlete expected to smash the 25-year-old 1500m lap record set by Olympic marathon representative Margurite Buist of 4min 40sec.
Only after the pair completed the first of four laps in 1min 7sec did it become apparent Buist's time was under threat.
The second lap was a bit slower, 1min 11sec, with the third at 1min 10sec and the fourth in 1min 7sec.
Newbould won by just 0.4sec, recording 4min 35.41sec and Greene 4min 35.81sec.
Both bettered Buist's mark by more than 4sec on the soft surface.
Following on from Newbould and Greene, the second and third leg runners kept in close contact and maintained a blistering pace, setting up a thrilling finish, with world cross-country representative Rachel Kingsford running for Hill City and Otago junior champion Barbara Roy for University.
Roy quickly made up a 3sec deficit on Kingsford and they were locked together until Roy made a burst 250m out and gathered momentum on the turn into the home straight, to record a thrilling victory for her team.
Roy was full of praise for the opposing teams and said team tactics were to just run hard.
The spike marks in the soft surface were still fresh under the darkening skies when national junior 800m champion Glen Ballam shot Caversham into contention on the first leg of the 6x1500m senior men's event.
Richard Olsen extended Caversham's lead on the second leg and Robert Brown, Bevan Stevens and Tony Payne kept the team in contention, leaving national junior champion Daniel Balchin to do the business on the final leg, and secure the club's first Lovelock Trophy win since 1984, in 25min 17sec.
Balchin was elated.
"I'm stoked. I knew the pressure was on. I knew I just had to perform. This win will be great for the club."
