Top 10 Finish at South of England XC for TVH’s U17 Women
The best TVH performance at the Southern Championships came from out Under 17 Women’s team. Led home by Kosana Weir in 17th place who missed this race last year. This was a great performance against some of the best women in her age group in the south of England. In 34th place India Weir was unfortunately one place down on her last year’s 33rd position but was 28 seconds faster. Next home for the Valley was Isabelle Ellis having her best race of the winter and finishing 83rd. Not far behind her, Verity Walker found the going hard but still got inside the first 100 runners with her 97th place. With no other TVH runners it was good to at least have a complete team who finished in seventh place overall.
Out Under 15 girls team also had the required four girls to make up a team. Charlotte Buckley was lying in 35th place at the end of the small lap but she then moved through the field to finish in 21st place. With the London Schools championships taking place on Wednesday it will be interesting to see how she performs on Wormwood Scrubs. Melina Duer was not feeling well for the race but managed to make it to the finish in 127th place for the team. Behind her, Niamh Murphy had a great run and was going really well at the finish as she finished in 140th place. Unused to having 40 runners behind her, Charlotte Cooney-Quinn was not allowed to relax and then had a great tussle in the finishing strait, finishing 231st. She then ran off to find her mum who was parked in a two hour restriction zone. The team finished 20th out of 28 complete teams.
Our two under 13 girls had mixed fortunes. Olivia Colegrave had one of her best-ever runs. Looking very impressive she finished 93rd out of the 283 in the race. Once again stitch caused Lily Dafter to have a bad time but she still managed to finish 180th. Sadly Zakia Mossi had not recovered after finishing third in the Middlesex Schools championships on Thursday in freezing conditions and was unable to run.
It was good to have a full team in the under 13 boys race. First home was Alfie Turner in 96th place. Max Bishop was having his first u13 race and his 161st place was quite an eye-opener for him in a field of 312 finishers. Still getting back from injury, Basil Rock was way off his best in 182nd place but well done for turning out. Fourth scorer Charlie Rollo just missed being in the top 200 with his 201st place. Nelson Gordon was 264th which was an encouraging run from him.
In the under 17 men’s race it was unfortunate that Lucillo Burrell was given the wrong start time and missed the race. Nicholas Duer and Taylor Sharkey bravely ran round near the back of the field, Taylor had never run this distance before. They finished 167th and 180th.
U13G. 3000m. 93 O Colegrave, 13:36; 180 L Dafter, 14;32.
U13B 3000m. Team 26/37.
96 A Turner, 12:23; 161 M Bishop, 12:50; 182 B Rock, 13:06; 201 C Rollo, 13;14; 264 N Gordon, 13:59.
U15G 4000m.Team 20/28.
21 C Buckley, 17:35; 127 M Duer, 12:26; 140 N Murphy, 19:32; 231 C Cooney-Quinn, 22:02.
U17W. 5000m. Team 7/15.
17 K Weir, 21:12; 34 I Weir, 22:01; 84 I Ellis, 23:54; 97 V Walker, 24:20.
U17M. 6000m. 167 N Duer, 24:24; 180 T Sharkey, 25.56.