Kosana Weir and new crop of under 11 boys lead the way

As last year, the weather was atrocious at the final Start Fitness Met League at Alexandra Park of the season. In addition to the hill, athletes were faced with flurries of snow and freezing temperatures.

With half term absentees there was a remarkable turn-out of young TVH athletes. The boys did particularly well by finishing second team in the under 11 race and fourth team in the under 13’s.

Kosana Weir won the under 15g/U17w race after a tremendous tussel with another twin from Woodford Green. It was only in the last 20 metres that she managed to sprint away. Behind her, Melina Duer was also having a great run for her seventh place. With Lilly Salkeld finishing 30th they finished fourth team on the day and were second best team in the overall league.

Roy Clarridge reports:

The best performance for the boys came with their second place in the under 11 age group. Sol Inglis had his best run of the season when finishing fifth. Behind him, two new members, Luca Fletcher 21st and Luc Dubois 44th had very promising first appearances and with Jai Sakar 59th scoring for the team it was our best result of the season. Determined not to be last again, Brandon Dias finished 76th and was a long way in front of the last boy.

The under 13 boys also had a full team which finished fourth. It is good to see Basil Rock getting back to form and his 10th place was a good run after injury. Charlie Rollo also had one of his best runs to finish 15th. Yet another improvement saw Nelson Gordon finish in 32nd place. Newcomer Luke Walsh also performed well to finish 34th. Noor Mahmoud let us know that he didn’t like the cold at the back of the field but still produced his usual fast finish at the end.

For the girls teams we were very short of numbers. Only Emme Low was in the under 11 race for the Valley and did very well in her first race to finish 28th. In the under 13 race we only had two girls taking part. Lily Dafter came home frozen in 20th place but had the consolation of not having tummy problems and Mabel Salkeld had the handicap of extra layers of clothes to finish in 60th place.

Start Fitness, Met League 5, Alexandra Park, Feb 11, 2017, Results:

U11G. 28 E Low 8:45.

U11B, Team 2nd. 5 S Inglis 6:42; 21 L Fletcher 7:19; 44 L Dubois 7:50; 59 J Sakar 8:21; 76 B Dias 10:55.

U13G. Team 13th. 20 L Dafter 15:39; 60 M Salkeld 18:17.

U13B. Team 2nd. 10 B Rock 13:50; 15 C Rollo 13:58; 32 N Gordon 15:09; 34 L Walsh 16:20; 38 N Mahmoud 16:51.

U15/17G. Team 4th. 1 K Weir 17:16; 7 M Duer 18:40 (2nd U15); 30 L Salkeld 21:06 (20th U15).