South of England Cross Country Relays – Wormwood Scrubs Sat 20th October 2018
South of England Cross Country Relays, Wormwood Scrubs – Saturday 20th October 2018
TVH helped host the South of England Cross Country Relays, held in ideal conditions, the sun shone and the course was very dry. Mo Aadan and Tracy Barlow, fresh from their PBs in the Commonwealth Half Marathon, both ran the last leg for the TVH ‘A’ teams in the senior races.
Men – after three good legs from Chris Thomas, Hugo Cayssials and Sayed Yusuf, Mo started the last leg of the 4.7km course in 6th place well over a minute behind the leaders. In an incredibly tight finish Mo almost ran down the leaders finishing 3rd with just 2 seconds separating the first 3 teams. Mo’s time of 13:26 was easily the fastest of the day. The TVH ‘B’ team finished 10th of 42 teams, with newcomer Olivier Wijtenburg the equal 10th fastest runner of the day and Andrew Mitchell just quicker than fellow veteran Naol Abagibe and Daniel Garcia-Rasines.
We were unable to field a full team in the U20 men’s race, but Abdi Mohamed at least had the satisfaction of finishing well in the lead on the 1st leg and was the 2nd fastest runner on the day.
Women – our ‘A’ team finished just outside the medals in 4th place with Tracy taking over on the last leg in 8th place after good runs from Stephanie Ainley and Lisa da Silva. The ‘B’ team were also well placed after a great run on the 1st leg from Katie Olding after a couple of weeks back training.
In the Junior Under 20 races our women’s team were in 5th place throughout the race after a good start from Amelia Casey, followed by Jasmine Grey and Rosie Vallance.
Young athletes – it was encouraging to have so many TVH runners taking part even though half term had robbed us of nearly all our under 13 boys and several other good athletes.
With three teams in the Under 13 girls relays, this was our best event, number wise. The first lap of their 2km relay saw them doing battle against each other. First home was ‘B’ team Sasha Mueller who is getting back to her best form. She was 11th with ‘C’ team Olivia Sparks 12th also having a great run. Thea Almvqvist-Dutton was 16th even though she had over 30 girls behind her. Sofia Cappelli then made up four places to almost catch ‘B’ team Anna Kelly, who moved up to 10th place. Katerina Simakova lost a bit of ground but still brought the ‘C’ team home in17th place. On the final lap Myla Sutaria finally brought the ‘A’ team home in 10th place overall and Skyla Robertson finished 12th. Charlotte Brown, one of our youngest team members ran bravely to bring our ‘C’ team home in 20th place out of the 34 teams who finished.
The best TVH result came in the Under 17 Women’s relay. On the first lap of their 2.5km relay Sarah Kebbell had a great run to come home 4th. This has been her first outing since being injured in July and her first cross country run for the club. Her time was the 11th fastest of the day. Niamh Murphy has found good form this winter and she had another good run to bring her home in 7th position. Charlotte Buckley had to work hard on the last lap and passed two athletes to bring the team home in 5th place.
The Under 15 boys team were also up against superior teams and Baqar Abamecha had a good finish to get the team up to 19th place. Then Basil Rock improved to 14th place before Charlie Rollo lost a couple and finished 16th. As there were 26 teams finishing I don’t think we did too badly.
Likewise the Under 15 girls were unfortunate that Lily Dafter caught stitch and had a poor run for her in 36th place. Then Aramay Robertson had a good run to pick up 10 places on the second lap. Zenia Nelson also showed good form to bring the team home 24th out of the 31 teams.
With only Morris Rock available in the Under 13 relay, he ran it as an individual race and finished 24th.
Results: Men
TVH (A) 3rd Chris Thomas 14:54, Hugo Cayssials 14:40, Sayed Yusuf 14:49, Mohamud Aadan 13:26
TVH (B) 10th Naol Abagibe 15:35, Andrew Mitchell 15:24, Olivier Wijtenburg 14:17, Daniel Garcia-Rasines 15:30
TVH (C) 23rd Jack McKeon 16:59, Manuel Da Silva 17:20, Jibrel Ahmed 17:09, Robert Vallance 16:05
TVH (D) 38th Paul Woodgate 18:20, Richard Hooley 19:49, Scott Brewer 19:27, Phil Wetton 19:25
U20 Men – Abdi Mohamed 10:09
Women
TVH (A) 4th Stephanie Ainley 12:15, Lisa Da Silva 12:25, Tracy Barlow 11:27
TVH (B) 15th Katie Olding 12:09, Victoria Carter 12:54, Lara Scerri 14:28
TVH (C) 36th Fran Lou 14:20, Siana Jones 14:48, Christine Munden 20:13
U20 Women – 5th TVH ‘A’ Amelia Casey 08:43, Jasmine Grey 09:05, Rosie Vallance 09:33 ‘B’ Maryna Voloshyna 10:48
Young Athletes
Under 13 Girls 2km Relay.
‘A’ T Almqvist-Dutton 8:09; S Coppelli 8:13; M Sutaria 8:19. Team 10th
‘B’ S Mueller 8:02; A Kelly 8:19; K Simakova 8:31. Team 12th
‘C’ O Sparks 8:04; S Robertson 8:38; C Brown 8:55. Team 20th.
Under 17 Women . ‘A’ S Kebbell 8:22; N Murphy 8:38; C Buckley 8:31. Team 5th. ‘B’ A Alonso-Bizzi 9:24; C Rousset 9:26.
Under 15 Boys B Abamecha 7:06; B Rock 7:20; C Rollo 7:38. Team 16th. R Sherif 8:06; J Nixon 8:46.
Under 15 Girls L Dafter 8:40; A Robertson 8:34; Z Nelson 8:33.
Under 13 Boys – M Rock 7:32