Charlotte Buckley highest TVH finisher at Southern cross country
South of England Cross Country Championships, Parliament Hill, Sat 26th January 2019
Congratulations to Charlotte Buckley on her magnificent sixth place in the Under 17 Women’s 5km race, sprinting past four athletes in the closing stages. She led the team to 6th place and was backed up with some great performances by the rest of the girls. Sarah Kebbell came away with a tremendous 19th place in her first Southern championships. Our next best position came in the Under 15 Girls race where Jasmine Palmer was also racing at her first Southern, her 25th place (2 days after the Middx Schools cross country champs) showed what great talent we have at Thames Valley.
There were some good performances from the 18 TVH men amongst the 1100+ taking part in the testing 15km race; Chris Smith, Michael Cameron, Rob Collins, James Ellis, Daniel Garcia-Rasines and Calum Nicol making up the 6 to score team finishing in 10th place. Calum was followed home by Naol Abagibe, new member John Borton, Ryan Keane and Andrew Mitchell.
Chloe Baker ran well as first TVH athlete home in the 8km women’s race; just outside the top hundred in 101st out of 703 finishers.
Young Athletes races; in the U17 Women’s team Melina Duer’s 66th place was her best run this winter, with Capucine Rousset having pressure on to do her best for the scoring team (with Charlotte, Sarah and Melina) and came home in 127th place.
U15 Girls – following Jasmine home after some unfortunate races earlier in the season, Olivia Colegrave came good with her 145th place. Also getting it right, Lily Dafter was very close behind her in 153rd place. This time she didn’t have to fight stitch problems which she has suffered recently. Also knowing that she was fourth scorer, Zenia Gordon battled well to finish 202nd and bring the team home in 23rd place.
Under 13 Girls – it was very pleasing to have eight girls on the start line at the bottom of Parliament Hill. For part of the race Charlotte Edge led the TVH team but Anna Kelly passed her to finish 68th. Charlotte was just behind in 76th place. Molly McCormack was having her first Under 13 race over 3000m and did remarkably well to be our third girl home in 136th place. The good thing about it was that she enjoyed the challenge of Hampstead Heath and has another two years in this age group. Then there were three Valley girls together with Thea Almvqvist-Dutton, Olivia Sparks and Sasha Mueller 162, 163, 164. Well done. Sofia Cappelli was only 12 seconds behind them in 180th place. Charlotte Brown was 220th with plenty of girls behind her and the TVH team finished in 17th place.
Starting the day was the Under 15 Boys race. With newcomer Louis Hodge having his second race on Parliament Hill (he was 2nd in the London Youth Games) but this time the opposition was a different class. Even so, he did well to finish 51st , Aidan Ferrand was next in 190th place, followed by Joseph Nixon and Romadan Sherif.
Under 13 Boys – Max Bishop started quickly, but unfortunately faded back to 130th after a very busy week of school sports and Rory McConnon had a more steady run in 196th and will be in this age group next year and Conrad Mathews finished 250th.
Full results at http://www.seaa.org.uk/index.php/events/cross-country