Promotion for TVH’s Senior and Vets Men XC Teams
Trent park was the venue for the 5th and final race of the Met League cross country series.
Muddy and hilly with lashings of icy wind & rain made conditions a real challenge for all on the day with the TVH base-camp tent nearly blowing away.
Going into Saturday’s race the Valley Senior men were on top of the table and needed to put in a solid team performance to make sure they held on to a strong lead in division two. The Veteran Men were on top of division two but only 14 points ahead of third place requiring a determined effort to maintain their lead.
With a couple of late drop-outs due to injury and illness there were a few concerns from the management that maybe this was not our year after all.
There was no need to worry though, as the 17 men racing through the mud ran very well indeed.
Both the Senior and Veteran men finished in 3rd place, scoring enough points to maintain their place at the top of the tables for division two and securing promotion to division 1 for next season!
The ladies have also had a very strong season in the top division of the Met League. Eight strong TVH senior ladies braved the muddy conditions on Saturday. Stephanie and India both finished inside the top ten over all (8th and 10th respectively) with India also finishing first junior overall. Lara finished 66th and Kate and Fran encouraged each other up the final hill finishing 171st and 172nd, only 4 seconds apart. Christine Munden finished 216th.
There were two new additions to the training group and team from Imperial college; Charlotte Green who had an excellent race finishing in 51st place and Maryna Voloshyna who is new to TVH and also new to cross-country racing.
Overall the senior ladies finished in 5th place in this seasons Met League which means they remain in division 1.
Congratulations and thank you to all who raced throughout the season from the relatively dry start of Claybury to the muddy finale of Trent Park in what has been a record breaking series in the Met League, seeing more men racing than ever before.
Special thanks to Barry Saunders and Phil Wetton for being the beating heart of the senior men’s team.
Please see below for individual race results.
Senior Men 8km:
16th Conor Kissane-Wood 30:46
74th Robert Collins 33:36
94th Mohammed Binow 34:16
95th Todd Oates 34:21)
112th Duncan Hunter 34:59
120th Naol Abagibe 35:13
153th Hugo Dias 36:40
177th Greg Bennett 37:22
229th Alex Baldwin 38:49
259th Matt Ponting 40:03
269th Scott Brewer 40:22
276th James Malcolm 40:51
282nd Paul Woodgate 41:19
283rd Richard Hooley 41:26
313th Richard Bell 42:28
348th David Ford 44:43
349th Lawrence Tse 44:49
Senior Ladies Results 6km:
8th Stephanie Ainley 25:08
10th India Weir (1st U20) 25:19
51st Charlotte Matthews 27:52
66th Lara Scerri 28:36
165th Maryna Voloshyna 34:39
171st Kate Robinson 35:10
172nd Fran Lou 35:14
216th Christine Munden 42:01