TVH men finishing 2nd at the North West London Young Athletes Cross Country
The second round of North West London Young Athletes Cross Country races took place on the testing course at Fryent Country Park in Kingsbury. This was a new venue for the young athletes, but a familiar one for TVH with the long standing North of the Thames championship races and the 70th running of the senior athletes Liddiard Trophy also taking place (with the TVH men finishing 2nd team).
The races started with the under 11 Girls and Sasha Mueller was again victorious with a confident performance, but this time pushed harder at the finish by the Cookham athlete who also finished second to Sasha at the first NW London YA races at Perivale. In the second race the under 11 Boys and under 13 Girls ran together and this featured several athletes in their first races for TVH. In a dramatic start, Morris Rock fell heavily and took a while to recover but moved through from the back of the field to finish in a creditable 12th place and Henry Turner followed up his good run at Woodford in the Met League to finish well in 27th. Jai Sarkar made a good start in his TVH debut finishing just behind Henry and Kirin Bhatnagar also did well in his first race.
Lily Dafter continues to improve race by race, starting steadily and finishing very quickly for 6th place in the U13 Girls race. Maddie Casey was another athlete competing for TVH for the first time and stayed with Lily early on to finish in a good 9th place with the fast finishing Olivia Colegrave just behind in 13th. Lily, Maddie and Olivia all prefer longer distance races but ran well, as did Eva-Marie Weintraub in 24th place and the team finished in a good 3rd place in a very competitive race .
With the U13 Boys and U15 Girls racing together we had three finishing high up in the Boy’s race; Basil Rock back to form in 4th place, followed by Alfie Turner in 10th and Aidan Ferrand. Alfie deserves special mention for his efforts – an overnight flight from Kenya and illness wasn’t going to stop him running and putting in the best sprint finish of the day.
We had our second winner of the day in the U15 Girls race; Melina Duer looked very good over the tough hilly course and was a comfortable winner, beating some good Highgate athletes. Melina was well supported by a strong run from Niamh Murphy and Charlie Cooney-Quinn to help the team to 2nd place.
The under 17 races also included the North of the Thames championships. Amelia Casey found the hilly 4km course tough going but still ran well for 6th place overall and 3rd place in the North of the Thames.
We had a good turnout in the U17 Men’s 5km race, with Lucillo, Oli and Nicholas all running well to help the team to 2nd place.
Results
Under 11 Girls approx 1.5km: 1 S Mueller 5:26
Under 11 Boys approx 2.2km: 12 M Rock 9:00; 27 H. Turner 9:49; 32 J Sarkar 10:05;
46 K. Bhatnagar 12:02
Under 13 Girls approx 2.2km: 6 L. Dafter 8.53; 9 M. Casey 9.25; 13 O. Colegrave 9.32;
24 E-M. Weintraub 10.04 Team 3rd
Under 13 Boys approx 3km: 4 B Rock 11:48; 10 A Turner 12:08; 22 A Ferrand 12:42; Team 5th
Under 15 Girls approx 3km: 1 M Duer 12:32; 8 N Murphy 13:12; 19 C Cooney-Quinn 14:38
Team 2nd
Under 17 Women approx 4km: 6 A. Casey 15:49 (3rd North of Thames Championship)
Under 17 Men approx 5km: 4 L Burrell 15.59; 6 O. Weintraub 16.42; 8 N Duer 17:37. Team 2nd