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TransAustralia Footrace - First 31 Stages Summary

It was over six months ago that Bernie Farmer first contacted me with his vision for the World's Greatest Ultra race. He had the vision for twenty five of the world's best ultra runners to compete in a stage race from Perth to Canberra. It was going to happen during our "Centenery of Federation" and it was going to showcase ultramarathon running much in the same way as the Westfield did in the 80's.

Well after much "on the run" organising by Bernie Farmer and Jessie Farmer, perhaps the greatest ultra stage field ever assembled in this country was assembled at the start in Perth on Jan 6th to start their run across the continent. Some promised sponsorship pulled out with only two weeks to go but the race organisers had to continue with what they had. The World's Greatest Ultra Runner, Yiannis Kouros decided not to run. He hadnt fully recovered after his injury after Colac.

The race soon settled into a pattern and the Top 6 became Kruglikov, Derxen, Molnar, Mravlje, Sakurai and our own Mick Francis. The firsr main casualty of the race became Istvan Sipos who pulled out after about a week on the road. Was he still injured after his World Continuous Run Record and not up to the rigours of stage racing for two months non stop.

About two weeks into the race, four Australians were to call it a day with David Criniti, Andrew Lucas, Peter Hoskinson and Peter Gray all pulling out with a five day time frame becaus eof various injuries.. All should be proud of their efforts though and wil come back better and stronger stage runners in future years. Peter Gray was to stay with the race and has been tireless with his efforts behind the scene. Peter is a credit to the sport. That left four Australians in the field. They were Mick Francis (6th), Bryan Smith (7th), Paul Every (11th) and George Audley. George is 65 years old and surely his effort equates to Cliff's Westfield Run in 1983! They were all doing well and gradually progressing towards their goal of finishing in Canberra. The Russians were continuing to dominate but the race was still young and had nearly two monthes to go.

Tragedy then struck the race on 2nd Feb at 6.20am when 2.5km into the day's stage(70km west of Ceduna), Bryan Smith was taking a drink from his wife when he complained of feeling dizzy and fell to the ground. Other runners tried desperately to revivie him, but it was not to be and Australia's greatest homeborn Ultra Marathon runner was dead at 57. The race was immediately stopped and Ceduna became a place of grief for the next three days.

The race was restarted on the 5th of February from where Bryan fell and will still continue to the finish line at Canberra. The race is now in Bryan's memory and will raise money for his memory for the rest of the journey. The race will probably be changed through Victoria and stop at Bryan's home town of Melton for a Civic Reception and Testamonial function on the sam evening. This will probably be on the 28th Feb 01.

There are still fifteen runners left in the field. Yes there have been some teething problems but they are now being overcome and the race is gathering momentum as it approaches civilisation. It is a great vision of Bernie Farmer to put this race on and im sure that it will receive good publicity in the south eastern states. I also believe it has the potential to be a bi-annual event and it will lead to more people taking up the sport of ultra marathoning and improve the infrastructure of the sport.

Overall Results after Stage 31

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