TVH’s U17 girls Finish 6th at National Road Relays
TVH had five Girls teams of three athletes competing at the National Road Relays on a hilly 3.9km course in Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield on a surprisingly warm October afternoon. The best Team result for TVH was in the Under 17 Women’s Relay. Finishing sixth out of the 37 complete teams this was the best-ever position in this age group.
The U17 Girls had two teams running and we had the best TVH run of the day from India Weir in the A team, hitting the front on the second half of the course and finishing in the lead six seconds clear of second place and the 4th fastest time of the day. Last November, India handed over first in the English Cross Country relays at Mansfield, but in her first year in U17 age group this was probably an even better run. Verity Walker took over on the second leg and also had a much better run than at Aldershot handing over to Kosana Weir near the front of the field in seventh place. Kosana, although troubled by a foot injury brought the team home in sixth place, the best finish by any TVH team over the weekend (the women’s team finished seventh on the previous day) and higher than the same athletes finished at the Southern relays. The fastest leg in the B team was Olivia Olsher on the first leg, handing over to Matilda Ferrand on the second leg and the team finishing strongly with Alice Harray on the last leg.
In the U13 race we had two, closely matched teams competing, led out by Ava White in the A team and Lily Salkeld in the B team. Ava ran the fastest time of the TVH girls, handing over in the top half of the 70 starting teams with Lily not far behind with a much stronger run than at the Southern relays in Aldershot. Ava handed over to Philippine Poupart-Lafarge for the second leg, with Freja Schaap taking over from Lily in the B team. Philippine unfortunately suffered a nose bleed but still ran well, but Freja ran the second fastest time of the TVH girls, overtaking 14 teams to close the gap to the A team. Zakia Mossi started the last leg seven seconds ahead of Charlie Cooney-Quinn, holding on to bring the A team home in 33rd place with the B team finishing in 38th place.
Charlotte Buckley (who ran the fastest U13 leg in 2014) started the U15 team, moving through the field on the long hill just after the start and handing over to Margaux Couffon in fifth place. Margaux only lost four places and Rose Barkle on the third leg ran strongly to bring the team home in 15th place with Charlotte’s run the 10th fastest of the day.
With most of our athletes in the first year of the two year age groups, we look forward to even better results next year.
Results:
U13
33rd Thames Valley Harriers ‘A’ 50:24
1 Ava White (35) 16:10 2 P Poupart-Lafarge (36) 17:00, 3 Zakia Mossi (33) 17:14
38th Thames Valley Harriers ‘B’ 51:00
1 Lily Salkeld (51) 16:47 2 Freja Schaap (37) 16:30, 3 Charlotte Cooney-Quinn (38) 17:43
U15
15th Thames Valley Harriers 45:44
1 Charlotte Buckley (5) 14:24, 2 Margaux Couffon (9) 15:31, 3 Rose Barkle (15) 15:49
U17
6th Thames Valley Harriers ‘A’ 43:11
1 India Weir (1) 13:46, 2 Verity Walker (7) 15:06, 3 Kosana Weir (6) 14:19
32nd Thames Valley Harriers ‘B’ 49:15
1 Olivia Olsher (35) 15:28, 2 Matilda Ferrand (39) 18:03, 3 Alice Harray (32) 15:44