TVH Young Athletes at the National Championships
Highlights of the day included Charlotte Buckley’s top 30 finish in the U13 Girls’ race, and the U15 Girls’ Top Ten team result.
Roy Clarridge reports:
Best individual performance at the National Cross Country Championships came from Charlotte Buckley in the Under 13 Girls race. Having spent two days in bed during the week she bravely came to run in this championship race. Finishing 26th she was only one place lower than last year which shows how determined she is. Also having a good run in such a large race, Helena Findlater finished in the top half of the race in 203rd position. Charlotte Cooney-Quinn is also finding better form at the end of the season and her 364th place was just ahead of Zakia Mossi’s 376. It was good to have a team finishing the race in 39th place with ten teams behind the Valley.
The Under 15 Girls event was our best team result of the day. Even without Verity Walker (ill) and Olivia Olsher (away) the team finished in a very good 10th position. Margaux Couffon and Rosie Vallance had superb runs to finish 117th and 118th in the field of 379. Having only arrived home at 11.30pm on Friday night after a ski-ing holiday the Weir twins were not back into their running mode and struggled to get their legs going. After working hard to catch and run with Margaux and Rosie, Alice Harray lost places and 16 seconds to come home 151st. Although Sarah Goodhart appeared to be a long way behind her team runners she still finished with 102 girls behind her.
After his good 19th position in the South of England Championships, Lucillo Burrell was hoping to do better than his 55th position in the Under 15 Boys race. The conditions did not suit him and he was unable to use his natural speed in the race. George Goodhart though, had a very good run to finish 214th and he couldn’t get over that he just beat a boy with a beard! Nicholas Duer, who doesn’t do hills, somehow found out that they weren’t so bad was very pleased to be in front of Max Buckley in this race. Max had a bad day for him but at least he brought the team home in 32nd position.
With only one representative in each of the other three races our results were Eve Goodhart, U17W 85th having a reasonable run; Karim Mahiddine, U17M,106th,was hoping to be in the first 100 and U13B Basil Rock, 333rd, was one of the youngest boys in his race and will be u13 for the next two years..
Results
Under 13 Boys 3000m.
333 B Rock 15:57.
Under 13 Girls 3000m. Team 39/49.
26 C Buckley 13:34; 203 H Findlater 15:11; 364 C Cooney-Quinn 16:52; 376 Z Mossi 16:59.
Under 13 Boys 4500m. Team 32.
55 l Burrell 17:20; 214 G Goodhart 18:58; 318 N Duer 20:34; 327 M Buckley 20:47.
Under 15 Girls 4000m. Team 10th.
68 I Weir 17:10; 72 K Weir 17:13; 117 M Couffon 17:52; 118 R Vallance 17:53; 151 A Harray 18:09; 292 S Goodhart 20:24.
Under 17 Men 6000m.
106 K Mahiddine 23:33.
Under 17 Women 5000m.
85 E Goodhart 22.43.