Results round-up: National Road Relays, road races and Met League cross country

Posted on 20 October 2021 |

TVH men’s and women’s teams travelled to Sutton Coldfield on Saturday 9^th October to compete in the National Road Relays at Sutton Park. Paulos Surafel got the men’s team off to a great start, finishing 4^th on the first leg of the 6 stage event with a time of 17:07 on the tough 5.9km course. Paulos’s run was the 11^th fastest of the day with 75 teams taking part. On the 2^nd leg Niki Faulkner (18:44) was a late replacement in the team handing over to Chris Thomas on the 3^rd leg (18:13) with Ollie Barbaresi running 17:37 on the 4^th leg the second quickest TVH athlete on the day. Oli Newton (18:59) and Michael Cameron (18:07) brought the team home in 18^th place.

The women competed over a 4.3km course in a 4 stage event. Steph Ainley (16:15) got the team off to a solid start, Lisa da Silva (16:09) and Cat Allen (16:49) steadily picked up places and with the fastest member of the team Tracy Barlow (15:21) on the last leg picking up another 6 places to finish in 27^th place out of 63 teams.

Two of the men’s team were back in action the following weekend on Sunday 17^th October racing over 10 miles. Paulos Surafel won the Cabbage Patch 10 race in Twickenham in 48:43 and Chris Thomas finished 19^th in the Great South Run in Portsmouth in 50:48.

Oli N, Ollie B, Niki, Paulos, Michael and Chris at Sutton Park

Start Fitness Metropolitan Cross Country League, Woodford Saturday 16^th October

The Met League returned for the 2021/22 season at the Claybury, Woodford traditional opening fixture venue. The best TVH result of the day came in the Junior Women U15 & U17 two lap 4.2km race (main image). Following her fine road races at the Middlesex relays and the mini marathon this was the first cross country race of the season for Adela Svihalkova who looked in control of the race early on before pulling clear on the second lap to win by 18 secs in 15:31. The first 3 finishers were all U15 and next home for TVH was Skye Bishop in 13^th overall and 8^th U15, with Anna Kelly and Orla Grist making up the scoring team ahead of Natasha Bennett. In the Junior Men’s race Max Bishop finished 17^th in 14:51 and Reggie Rock 52^nd overall out of 94 runners and 17^th of 50 athletes in the U15 age group.

The highest placed TVH junior team was in the first race of the day the U11 Boys with Adela’s twin brothers Bernie and Barnabas Pela finishing 6^th and 12^th out of 37 runners in their first race for the club with Luis da Silva in 10^th place. All three are 9 years old and will still be in the U11 age group next season.

The Senior / U20 races 8.1km races had Two TVH athletes had excellent runs to finish in the top 10 in the Senior / U20 races 8.1km races; Steph Ainley moving through the field to finish 10^th and Toby Clyde 7^th in the men’s race. Next home for TVH in the women’s race was Chloe Baker 20^th out of 179 less than 2 weeks after her debut marathon closely followed by Lisa da Silva in 22^nd. Oli Newton and Niki Faulkner both finished in the top 20 out of 370 runners in the men’s race and Tom Taylor in the top 50.

Full results at : https://www.thepowerof10.info/results/results.aspx?meetingid=429902

The first British Athletics Cross Challenge event took place in Cardiff on the same day as the Met League cross country. TVH had two athletes competing in the men’s 9.6km race, Ollie Barbaresi finishing 8^th and Jordan Rowe 13^th.