JANE Fardell’s place in the marathon event at next year’s World Championships in Moscow has been confirmed.
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The track and field championships are on from August 10 to 18.
The Dubbo runner will compete in the 42km endurance race with Lauren Shelley while former Alectown runner Scott Westcott will represent Australia in the men’s marathon.
All three distance runners came under notice with outstanding performances in the national marathon trials held in Melbourne.
Shelly won the women’s race in 2:36.29 with Fardell second in 2:37.54, both going inside the women’s qualifying mark for the world titles.
Fardell, 32, has travelled the world this year competing in marathons and before Melbourne ran 2:39 in Paris and 2:45 in Berlin and was marginally slower in London.
She has competed in Australian colours before, but in triathlons, now she’s ready to go to the next level in her career.
Fardell said her performance at Melbourne was her best for the year.
“It was good to get down to 2:37 and while I was penciled in for Moscow, I didn’t have my selection confirmed until this week. So it’s all now good,” she said.
“Obviously I need to stay injury free and get faster but I’m prepared to put in the hard work and as it came with my Moscow selection, the rewards eventually do come.
“I would suggest I will find a marathon early in the new year and then I’ll see what happens.”
Fardell’s last outing was a half-marathon win at Carcoar but she has also been a familiar face in other ‘local’ events including Mudgee, Orange and Bathurst.
And of course winning The Sydney Morning Herald Half-marathon in May also put national selectors on notice she had more gas left in the tank for the longer distance. Scott Westcott’s selection was also significant.
Now living in the Newcastle district, he clocked 2:16.00 in Melbourne to be the leading Australian when he finished third behind two Kenyan runners who dominated in 2:12.35 and 2:15.58.
Westcott has previously represented Australia at the world championships in 2005 (Helsinki) and 2009 in Berlin.
Both Fardell and Westcott are well-known in western area running having been duel winners of the Rotary Dubbo Zoo Fun Run as youngsters starting out their careers.