Devonport teenager Brooke Jones has continued her love affair with the Launceston Athletic Carnival, taking out her third gift in four years.
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A broken foot in 2016 kept her from defending her 2015 title, but not even experienced sprinters Morgan Gaffney (second) and Abby Chapman (third) could stop the 19-year-old becoming the millenium’s only three-time Launceston gift winner.
“Every year I’ve been here so far I’ve won so it’s my lucky carnival,” Jones said after her 120m triumph.
“I really love the carnivals, they’re a heap of fun and they show you where you are coming up into the amateur running season.
“I had a pretty good mark if I’m honest so I knew I had a pretty good chance, but I just had to run through because we had some really good backmarkers up the back with Morgan Gaffney and Abby Chapman.”
The battle between Mark Nicholls, Brendan Smart and Tim Potter lasted all afternoon and there was not much to split between them.
Potter finished milliseconds ahead of Nicholls to claim the masters 300m race, and the duo finished equal second to Smart in the open 70m.
But Nicholls had the last laugh by taking out the 120m gift to start the season where he left off.
“It was nice to win St Helens at the end of last year and then get a win to start this season,” the Hobart-based sports teacher said.
“Being 40 you take all the wins you can get.
“I ran second a couple of years ago here when it was a 200 and ran a third last year, but I’ve probably been coming here for 25 years - it’s nice to finally get a win.
“I started when I was 15 and I’ve run every year since.”
In other results, frontmarker Ben McShane defended his open 1000m title with a comfortable win ahead of Dominic Anastasio and Gus Tomlinson-Smith, leading from start to finish in a race where no runner passed another.
The 400m open race was taken out by 2017 1000m runner-up Lachlan Bonney, who came from a backmark of 21m to finish ahead of rising star Jack Colgrave (26m) and Max Green (25m).