Eureka Tower Climb Race Report
Sunday 17th November 2019 saw the return of the highly anticipated Eureka Stair Climb, Australia’s highest stair climb and our National Championship Race. This year saw the return of SCA member and current record holder Mark Bourne after he missed the race in 2018 to compete in Shanghai.
With several other elite athletes from across the world competing, and Mark in the best form he’s been in for some time, the heat was on and the elites lined up at the start line with a high level of anticipation to see if anyone could come close to Mark, or even the record of just 7:34 to ascend the 1642 stairs over 88 floors.
In the end the elite race was not as close as we thought it could have been with Mark coming home in an incredible 7:45, just 11 seconds off the record and his 2nd fastest of all time, finishing some 73 seconds ahead of World Number 2 Soh Wai Ching, who finished in 8:58. Still an impressive time with very few people ever to complete the climb in under 9 minutes.
In the women’s race it was victory once again for SCA member Brooke Logan, continuing her good form from Sydney to come home in 10:41 ahead of Emily Ritter completing the climb in a very respectable 11:24
Results from other categories were:
Fastest Individual Male - Peter Macknamara, 09:47
Fastest Individual Female - Kim Hamilton, 11:55
Corporate Challenge Fastest Team - Cedar Woods, 17:34
Emergency Services Fastest Female Individual - Kim Hamilton, 11:36
Emergency Services Fastest Male Individual - Cullen Hamilton, 12:25
Full Kit Fastest Female Individual - Masha Prokudina, 19:58
Full Kit Fastest Male Individual - Nicholas Hoare, 13:48
Best dressed - Tom Shael, 13:12
SCA member and Vice President Ed Manktelow continued to show improvement, finishing almost 2 minutes quicker than last year to come home in 10:34 and finish 7th overall, and our secretary Maria Piemontese came home in a fantastic 18:09 - a spectacular achievement after a year spent plagued by injury.
A special mention has to go out to SCA member and all round ultra climber John Du Boulay, finishing a staggering 16 climbs to achieve a total elevation gain of 4448 meters - that’s over HALF THE HEIGHT OF EVEREST!! Well done John!
We also saw Karen Withers put in a strong performance to come 4th in Elite in a time of 12:13 and Athavan ‘Arty’ Selvanathan came home in 12:09, proving he will be a force to be reckoned with next year.
The day as a whole was well organised and we had a great presence in the virtual challenge tent - thanks to everyone who came to say hi!
And so that concluded what has been an excellent year of stair climbing in Australia with members across the board excelling themselves and reaching beyond their dreams, including Stair Climbing Australia as an organisation itself. We have gone from strength to strength this year, as have our members and our dedicated committee, without whom none of this would be possible so we continue to thank each and every one of you and we can’t wait to see what next year has in stair for us all!
