	{"id":115367,"date":"2026-06-26T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/?p=115367"},"modified":"2026-06-24T17:14:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T07:14:38","slug":"runners-tackle-relays-on-thunderdome-circuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/sport\/runners-tackle-relays-on-thunderdome-circuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Runners tackle relays on Thunderdome circuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THE roar of racing cars at Calder Park Thunderdome will be replaced by the pounding of thousands of feet in this Sunday&#8217;s leg of Athletics Victoria&#8217;s cross-country series.<\/p>\n<p>Athletics Bendigo Region will be fielding teams across a range of age groups at the iconic motorsports venue.<\/p>\n<p>Leg distances for the XCR relays will be 7.2km or 3.6km.<\/p>\n<p>Teams of six will run in the men&#8217;s premier division and five in the women&#8217;s highest class.<\/p>\n<p>The gun for the first wave of races will be fired at 12.30pm.<\/p>\n<p>Athletics Bendigo rolls into this round in third place in men&#8217;s premier division.<\/p>\n<p>The charge for Bendigo&#8217;s team, aka Bats in the top bracket will be led by Andy Buchanan who ran the Marathon at the Paris Olympics and has run the fastest marathon by an Australian.<\/p>\n<p>Buchanan&#8217;s team-mates across this XCR series have included Harrison Boyd, Matt Buckell, Jake Hilson, Matt Miller, Jayden Padgham, Nathan Stoate, Logan Tickell and Shaun White.<\/p>\n<p>The race for the men&#8217;s open champion athlete award is being led by Glenhuntly&#8217;s Ed Marks on 22 points from Sandringham&#8217;s Logan Janetzki, 18; Andy Buchanan and Western&#8217;s Zayd Al Sayd, 17.<\/p>\n<p>Bendigo team-mates Stoate and Buckell are fifth and equal sixth on five and 10 points.<\/p>\n<p>The Bats roll into Calder Park in third place in the premier men&#8217;s standings on 25 points as Sandringham, 44; and Western, 34; lead the charge.<\/p>\n<p>A tally of 17 points has Bendigo in sixth place in the women&#8217;s premier division.<\/p>\n<p>Leading runners for the Bats include Bec Wilkinson, Yazmin Hayes, Kaelee Beveridge, Anne Buckley, Phoebe Lonsdale, Ingrid Woodward, Simoen van der Meent.<\/p>\n<p>Bendigo&#8217;s rising stars are in great form.<\/p>\n<p>The Bats are second in the under-16 girls title race and under-14 girls.<\/p>\n<p>Rising stars in Bendigo&#8217;s squad include Avery McDermid, Abbey Reid, Tyler Fynch, Jenna Gaskell, Lucy Jones, Milanke Haasbroek and Lyla Edwards.<\/p>\n<p>The experience of Shaun White, Nigel Preston, Chris Armstrong, Katherine Cover, Antony Langdon, Ruth Sandeman, Anne McIntosh, Ingrid Woodward and Debby Kirne has played a key part in Bendigo being to the fore in many of the masters categories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE roar of racing cars at Calder Park Thunderdome will be replaced by the pounding of thousands of feet in this Sunday&#8217;s leg of Athletics Victoria&#8217;s cross-country series. Athletics Bendigo Region will be fielding teams across a range of age groups at the iconic motorsports venue. Leg distances for the XCR relays will be 7.2km [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/sport\/runners-tackle-relays-on-thunderdome-circuit\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":115370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-115367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Runners tackle relays on Thunderdome circuit - Bendigo Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Watch top runners tackle the Calder Park XCR relays this Sunday. Catch all the Athletics Victoria cross-country action live!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/sport\/runners-tackle-relays-on-thunderdome-circuit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Runners tackle relays on Thunderdome circuit - Bendigo Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Watch top runners tackle the Calder Park XCR relays this Sunday. 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