Strong Performances by a small team of Young Athletes at the English National XC
In the under 17 women’s race, Kosana Weir had a great run to finish 27th. Alice Harray was up in the 70s for most of the race and finally finished 89th. In the under 15 girls race Charlotte Buckley had a tremendous run to finish 19th, the best TVH place of the day and beat several girls who were in frond of her in the Southern. In the under 13 girls race, the water was a metre deep in places and some athletes took an early bath. Zakia Mossi had arrived very early and had a good look round the course. This paid off as she finished a fine 32nd. Olivia Colegrave cut it fine and therefore didn’t inspect the dreaded water splash, which was unavoidable. Olivia had a strong run and moved up the field throughout to finish 216th. Lily Dafter, a year younger, found the going tough: although she kept ahead of Olivia on the first lap, she dropped back to 296th.
Our under 13 boys were also one short of a team but still did well. The best performance came from Charlie Rollo who improved throughout the race to only finish 17 places behind Alfie Turner. He was the only one to improve his place on the Southern. Alfie battled throughout the race but used up his energy and lost a few places in the downhill sprint finish. Max went out fast and tried hard to hang on, but unfortunately struggled a bit on the second lap.
19 Charlotte Buckley 16:59. (21st in SEAA)
27 Kosana Weir 20:23 (17th in SEAA)
32 Zakia Mossi 14:01
87 Alice Harray 21:59
161 Alfie Turner 14:03 (96 in SEAA)
178 Charlie Rollo 14:07 (201 in SEAA)
216 Olivia Colegrave 15:32 (93rd in SEAA)
233 Max Bishop 14:25 (161st in SEAA)
296 Lily Dafter 16:11 (180st in SEAA)