Melbourne runner Harry Smithers was the suprise winner of the 40th Nail Can Hill Run beating homegrown Border favourite Caellum Crowe by 20 seconds.
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Crowe was in front halfway through the race after blitzing the big hills.
Smithers was in third place, behind Myrtleford-raised Ben Buckingham, but could see the two in front and made his move on the descent.
The Melbourne athlete chased down Crowe and said he tried to run as fast as he could down the hill.
“It came up surprisingly quite the three kilometres to go,” Smithers said.
“Between there and the six kilometres to go mark I go ahead of him (Crowe).”
Smithers, who finished in 38 minutes and 50 seconds, managed to hold off Crowe by a narrow margin and said he could hear the Border favourite’s footsteps behind him at times as he defended his lead.
It was the second year in a row Crowe has come runner-up at the event.
Smithers was invited to the race by Buckingham and stayed at the latter’s family’s house for the event.
Buckingham said he wasn’t sore about losing to Smithers despite being the one to bring him up the event.
“He hadn’t beaten me on the track all year so I thought I might have a chance against him but he was just too strong,” he said.
“At the end of the day if I can’t beat Harry I don’t deserve it.
“One day I’ll get the win I’m sure, I’m getting closer.”
Buckingham came in 42 seconds after Crowe with a time of 39.52.
He was followed by Luke Preston at 42.48 and teenage runner Hamish Hart.
Hart took out the under-16s men, more than two minutes ahead of his nearest competition, and finished fifth overall out of 929 full-can competitors with a time of 43.39.
Kevin Chapman ran a time of 1:08.51 to come out as top dog in the over-70s men.
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