10.02.2009

Schipp sails team into second place

A seventh placing to Billinda Schipp in Sunday's Hong Kong marathon has seen Australia’s women’s team finish second in the North East Asia and Rest of The World category at the conclusion of The Greatest Race on Earth 2008/09 at the weekend.

The Australian team of Schipp, June Petrie, Helen Stanton and Kate Seibold-Crosbie (pictured), pocketed US$50,000 for their efforts, completing the rigorous four-marathon series with a cumulative time of 12:05:37.

And, shaving an incredible 01:41:10 off their previous time in the event, the team also scooped a US$10,000 bounty for being the most improved team in the series.

The Greatest Race on Earth is the leading international marathon relay series and has this year seen men’s and women’s national teams of four runners compete in Nairobi (October, 2008), Singapore (December 2008), Mumbai (January, 2009) and Hong Kong.

In the event, each team member runs one of the four marathons with the winning team being the one with the fastest cumulative time.

Petrie set the Australian women’s team on its way in the opening leg of the series with a sixth placing before Stanton took the baton and turned on a stunning performance to finish second in the Singapore race. Seibold-Crosbie finished ninth in Mumbai.

At the conclusion of the series Schipp said the team was disappointed to have missed out on the major prize by a matter of seconds.

"It’s slightly frustrating that we finished just 43 seconds behind the winners China, but I gave it my absolute all and couldn’t have done any more," she said.

“I knew I had to finish ahead of the Chinese girl and I managed to stay with her most of the way but when she did pull away, I just couldn’t go with her.

"Anyway, I did pass a Kenyan runner at 28km and I never thought I would do that!”

Now in its fifth series, the Greatest Race on Earth offers a US$1 million prize pool with US!80,000 for the first-placed team in each category, US$50,000 for the second team and US$30,000 for the third-placed team.

Reflecting the race’s international appeal the competing countries are split into the three regional categories of Africa, South and Southeast Asia and North East Asia and the Rest of The World.

Further event information can be found here.