A NEW winner was crowned in the Blue Lake Fun Run on Sunday, while a familiar face took out the women’s long distance category for a third consecutive year.
When the gun sounded at 8am to send the 10.4km runners on their way, it was Morrocan-born Bouchaib Chefnaoui who capitalised on the late-withdrawal of six-time winner Thomas Hynes, by setting a blistering pace in the long-distance event.
Chefnaoui – who travelled from Melbourne to compete in the fun run – crossed the line in 34 minutes and 57 seconds to win the event.
Visiting the Blue Lake City for the first time, he said he was excited to leave his mark on Mount Gambier by outlasting more than 160 competitors in the 10.4km event to be crowned the fun run champion.
“My manager entered me in the event to get me back to the track again as I have been battling injury,” Chefnaoui said.
“I am so happy to be the winner.”
Chefnaoui hoped his recent return to running could act as the springboard to compete on an international stage.
“I have dreamed about running for Australia for a long-time, even when I was injured it was on my mind every day,” he said.
“At the moment I am running mostly 10km events, but I hope to stretch it out to a marathon distance.”
The pre-race story was the “late scratching” of elite runner Hynes who unfortunately suffered an injury in the lead-up to the event.
While Hynes’ fun run record was not threatened on Sunday, Chefnaoui made a promise to run a much faster time when he returned to the event in 2019.
“I want to try and run it in 28 minutes next year – this time was not as fast as I would have liked,” Chefnaoui said.
While his goal may seem ambitious, Chefnaoui has previously run a 42km marathon event in two hours and 17 minutes.
It makes for an exciting match-up if Hynes is healthy at next year’s event.
In the women’s category, Nikki Smart found her running stride once again, crossing the line in 38 minutes and 19 seconds to take out the event for the third consecutive year.
While stormy conditions on Saturday night threatened to mar the event the following morning, Smart said she was relieved to see the sun shining when she arrived at the Cave Gardens.
“It was quite blustery, the wind down the back straight was quite full-on, but the sun was out, which was nice,” she said.
“I thought we might be running in the rain, but fortunately we were not, so I really enjoyed the whole course.”
Smart praised the organisation of the event, which she said she enjoyed coming back to every year.
“The great thing about this race is the different distances taking off at different times, so when you are running along up the top, you have people cheering you on, there’s music playing and then on the way back down you run past the competitors in the shorter distances,” she said.
“It’s just a really good feeling.
“It’s great to have this event here because there is not really many others that happen close to this region.”
Second home in the men’s 10.4km event was Justin McDonald (38.47) while Jarred Dempsey finished third (40.51).
In the women’s category Anna Mitchell (45.06) and Rebecca Beumer (45.28) were second and third to cross the line respectively.
A large group of runners took off in 6.8km event at 8.15am with Finn Johnson (24.30) and Melanie Johnson (31.36) the first two runners home taking out the men’s and the women’s events respectively
The 3.2km event was the last to hear the horn, starting at 8.30am and Dylan Morton (11.55) was the runaway winner.
In the women’s section Rosie Collins (14.03) was the first female to cross the line.
