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Rose Davies of New South Wales won the Zatopek 10 in Melbourne on Tuesday with the second-fastest Australian time ever at 31:39.97. The performance represents a personal best by 1:45.55.

Davies will be seeking the Olympic qualification time of 31:25. In her opinion it was her first big win. This performance was due, as the 21-year-old has already run 32:02 on the roads and owns a 5000m personal best of 15:30.15.

The meet acts as the Australian national championships.

Brett Robinson won the men’s race in the time of 28:00.25. Jack Rayner and David McNeill followed in 28:13.42 and 28:16.86, respectively, to round out the podium.

Seven finished sub-29 and six more ran sub-30-minutes in the race.

Top-5 women all run new personal bests

The top-three Australian women were Davies, followed by Isobel Batt-Doyle for second in the time of 31:43.26, while Genevieve Gregson finished fourth overall in 32:06.32. Canadian Andrea Seccafien finished third with a new personal best of 31:45.95. She has also stated that she will be seeking the Olympic standard for Canada. Seccafien broke the national half-marathon record 11 months prior, becoming the second Canadian to breach the 70-minute barrier (one week after Natasha Wodak) with her 69:38 performance in Marugame, Japan.

Robinson didn’t quite achieve a new pb. In 2019 he ran two seconds faster with his 27:58.97 performance in Nijmegen, NED. Rayner ran the same race as Robinson clocking a 27:59:59 in 2019. McNeill has run as fast as 27:45.01 at the Payton Jordan Invitational in 2015.

Full meet results available here>>

Benita Johnson holds the national record at 30:37.68 from 2003. Patrick Tiernan has the men’s national record at 27:22.55 from Dec. 2020. The 2019 men’s Zatopek champion Stewart McSweyn previously held the record 27:23.80.

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