The Green Shield has been around since 1946 and there was plenty of drama in the 2014 version to do the old girl proud (I presume we refer to trophies in the feminine tense). The brilliant overhead and underfoot conditions left the 12 4-person teams with no excuse but to give it full noise.
Lap One - 4km.
After the first lap of two it was a tight tussle at the top with Jake Tully from Team 7 having a small lead over Robert Strong of Team 1. Steve Charles from Team 3 was taking a while to warm up but was keeping the leaders close. 2km later and Robert had eked out a nice gap on the field to power home in 15 min 30 sec to be fastest over 4km for the day. Steve had made up a lot of ground to be only 16 sec away while Jake had faded to be a further 11 sec away. Dylan Barron had kept it steady to have Team 11 not far back in 4th with Mark Speakman cursing the vigour of youth to be next home for Team 4. Those young tykes in the form of James Mikkelson for Team 2 and Adam Barron for Team 8 had made the old bloke work hard and more importantly they had kept them in the frame.
Lap Two – 2km.
The (mainly) youngsters then had their chance to shine and Alia Wentz was to the fore for Team 3 as she wore down and edged ahead of a brave Johnathon Moore for Team 3. The rest of the field was starting to edge closer though and Tyler Annand had made up a ton of ground to have Team 2 only a minute from the lead. Briana Herbert had hung on well to only be 1 second back in 4th for Team 4. The gaps were starting to appear further back although Isaac Pilcher for Team 11 and Chris Wong for Team 8 had kept them in the frame.
Lap Three – 4km.
As Toa Elphick-Iaveta headed off for Team 2 with just over a minute from the lead, the mumble at the start line was how far he would be in front at the end of 2 laps. This was the case after one lap but the race was building nicely behind him with Oliver Marshall going gang-busters for Team 8 i.e. he was not giving up without a fight. These two had started to set the scene for the final leg with Shannon Coxsey almost a minute away in 3rd for Team 1.
Lap Four – 2km.
A further titanic duel was to come though as David Kay for Team 12 had come off the bottom of the hill in to the finish straight with what seemed like a routine pass to make of Team 9's Kim Creagh to notch up a place. Nope. Kim was having none of that and it was a battle for the ages as David was quickly finding out that pulling teeth was going to be easier than getting past Kim. The desperation in David's eyes was evident as he realised getting past Kim might not happen but in the shade of the tree next to the finish line he got his cap in front to just (and I mean just) gain a whisper of an edge ahead of his combatant – brilliant stuff :-) .
