There will be no love lost at the Lovelocks.
Whippets caused arguably the biggest upset at last year’s annual relay, snapping Hill City-University’s senior men’s winning streak at six.
The Christchurch team will be hoping for more of the same at the University Oval today, and is even tipped to go one better and break the six-man relay time set 52 years ago.
Nearly the whole team — David Lee, Connor Melton, William Little, Russell Green, Jack Paine, Ronan Codyre — boasts personal bests under four minutes and came close to beating the record last year, winning with a time of 24min 37sec.
The record of 24min 12.6sec was set by the University of Otago team of Lindsay Dey, Alistair Stewart, Stuart Melville, Bruce Beath, Trevor Sutherland and Keith Darling in 1971.
"I think they’re good enough this year, and if they run to form, to actually break the 1971 record," Hill City-University president Simon Rhodes said.
But Hill City-University will be hot on their heels, led by Oli Chignell — aiming to break the individual 3min 52sec record — and Alex Whitt, Kirk Madgwick, Matthew Bolter, Reuben Beard and Nico Alvarez Rey.
Rebekah Greene, joined by Erin McKevitt, Rebecca Allnutt and Zara Geddes, will be hoping to help Hill City-University defend its senior women’s title.
There should be some tight races between Hill City-University and Leith in the men’s and women’s masters. Oliver O’Sullivan, who won the men’s 35-39 years grade at the world cross-country championships in February, rounds out the Hill City-University men’s side.
Rhodes was delighted to have 58 teams and 200 athletes competing, up from last year.
The Lovelock Relays get under way at 1pm today.
