Individual victories for TVH’s Young Athletes at the Met League
It was good to have so many young cross country runners representing the Valley at Stevenage. Especially as we had two individual winners, a second and a third in the different age group races.
Having her first cross country race of the season, Izzzy Dye started fast and was soon battling for first place with Isabella Hoy from Woodford. She eventually broke away to win convincingly. Behind her, Eve Goodhart also seems to enjoy the Stevenage course as she finished 11th, almost the same place as last year. With the Weir twins running for their School in the qualifying race for the English Schools Cup they decided not to have a second race in one day. Alice Harray and Verity Walker also ran for their schools in the morning but then came to support TVH in the Met League match. They ran round together for the points and did remarkably well to finish 13th and 15th to help the club finish one point behind Shaftesbury in second place. Also in the under 17/15 race, Chiara Kafero-Roberts had a tussle with Ashleigh Harewood before coming away in front due to having better footwear for the conditions.
Earlier, Charlotte Buckley who had also won her schools cup race, came to run round for the under 13 team. Starting slowly she showed her class by moving through the field to win the race by 13 seconds. Ava White was having her first run for the club and also did well to finish 5th. With Philippine Poupart-Lafarge and Lily Salkeld backing them up the team finished third team out of 17.
Nine-year-old Kate Price had a tremendous result in her first race for the club, finishing in 26th place in the mixed boys and girls under 11 race she finished eighth girl out of 37. In the same race Basil Rock had a great run to finish second. He improved from fifth in the previous Met League event and hopes to do even better in the next one. Aidan Ferrand was having his first run since suffering from an injury earlier in the year but will surely improve on his 13th place next time. Otto Huber also enjoyed his race when finishing 56th in the field of 94.
Aaron Harewood missed the start and then ran in the under 13 boys race which was twice as far. He did remarkably well to get round in 43rd place. In front of him Tane Robinson was also having his first cross country and finished 34th. Guy Kaye was disappointed that he was one place down on the previous race but it was still a good performance to be 19th.
The under 15/17 boys event was missing several Valley boys but those there did well. Karim Mahiddine was always just behind the leading group and his eighth place was good enough for him to be selected to run for the County. Just behind him, Lucillo Burrell in 10th place may also be selected. Abraham Mendes Da Costa is yet to find his best form but his 28th place shows that he is getting there. Just behind him, Jake Hooley almost caught him with his good run for 31st. Nicholas Duer did well to be 18 places in front of Kieran Lyons but Ebou Nije was not happy with the wet conditions in this race when finishing 79th. A special ‘well done’ to Kieran for having 14 boys behind him at the finish. Teamwise they finished a very good 4th place out of 22.
Under 11 Boys and Girls. Approx 2000m.
2 B Rock 7:08; 13 A Ferrand 7:35; 26 K Price (8F) 7:50; 56 O Huber 8:28.
Under 13 Boys 3000m. Team 11th.
19 G Kaye 12:23; 34 T Robinson 13:08; 43 N/S A Harewood 13:47.
Under 13 Girls 3000m. Team 3rd.
1 C Buckley 12:07; 5 A White 12:40; 25 P Poupart-Lafarge 14:05; 29 L Salkeld 14:50.
Under 15/17 Boys 4000m. Team 4th.
8 K Mahiddine 13:48; 10 L Burrell 13:56; 28 A Mendes Da Costa 14:39; 31 J Hooley 14:45; 55 N Duer 15:51; 73 K Lyons 16:40; 79 E Njie 17:38.
Under 15/17 Girls 4000m. Team 2nd.
1 I Dye 15:01; 11 E Goodhart 16:24; 13 A Harray 16:29; 15 V Walker 16:29; 46 C Kafero-Roberts 19:19; 49 A Harewood 19:32.