As 2012 champ and Victorian cross country and road running wrecking ball Steve Kelly  is not defending his title it leaves the door open for a 1^st time winner to engrave his name into Victorian T&F history.

So we give you 3 guys we think have the credentials to win plus our smoky.

Favourite no. 1: Mitchel Brown

The Aths Essendon runner has been having another strong season racking up the victories

1^st in the Vic 10k Road Champs, 1^st in the National Cross Country Champs, 1^st in the recent 10k at the Melbourne Marathon. He knows how to win and usually does. A 13:55 PB for the 5k shows he can get it done on the track too. But he doesn’t have the fastest 5k time in the field.

Favourite no. 2: Duer Yoa

That honour of 13:50 belongs to the Ballarat man who is another one putting out some quick times this year. Selected to represent Australia in the Chiba Ekiden relays on the 23^rd of November he may have something to prove at this event and I feel that there may be a battle to the wire with Mitch Brown in the offering.

Favourite no. 3: Zak Patterson

The young up and comer had had a great junior career thus far. I’m picking him based on his time of 10:59 around the tan in September at the AV Tan Relays.

Generally I’ve found that once someone goes sub 11 mins at the tan, big things usually are in store around the corner. Zak might just deliver something big on Thursday.

The smoky:

Just as there are smokies in the womens race there are in the mens. And my pick is Jacob Birtwhistle. It’s no secret that the Tasmanian can run fast as a 30:04 at the Launceston 10 in June this year to beat names like Ashkettle, Dent and Dinneen would indicate. If he has a cracking night?…..  well watch this space then.

A couple of things stand out, some pre race takeaways (PRT’s):

PRT 1: A number of the field falls in the 18-20 age bracket which is very encouraging for this distance. A number have also run in the u-20 de Castella 3k over the past 2 years.

PRT 2: The difference in personal bests between 6^th fastest and 18^th fastest is a mere 15 seconds over 13 guys. This tells me that even the 18^th man in the field has a chance of a medal but the overall win should come from the above mentioned 4 men.