U13 Girls Open the XC season with a Met League Win at Match 1
Possibly the driest ever start to the season at Claybury Park, Woodford. With some of the paths on tarmac most athletes wore training shoes for their races.
A magnificent win by our U13 girls team and the ‘B’ team were 6th. We had eight girls running and one more arrived just after their start so didn’t run. Led home by Kate Price in 3rd place she had a great run even though she raced on Friday in the Schools Cup. Charlotte Edge is beginning to show her true potential when she finished 8th. She was closely followed home by Lily Dafter, 10th. Aramay Robertson also had a good run to finish just behind Lily in 18th place. Then another flurry of TVH had Sasha Mueller 21st, Zenia Gordon running really well for 24th place. Olivia Sparks struggled and was not up at her best for 27th but Analesse Schoenen improved greatly to finish 30th out of 52 runners..
Making a great start to the season the Valley under 11 boys all finished in the top 10. Led home by George Kimble in 5th place, closely followed by Henry Turner in 7th and Reginald Rock 10th. Unfortunately our 4th runner Ollie Seraj missed the start. This was due to the taxi driver they had from Woodford Station, getting lost! The team finished a brilliant 2nd.
Then our two under 11 girls also had great runs to be in the top 11. Skye Bishop got the better of Skyla Robertson who was 11th. It was a pity that we didn’t have a third scorer. Even so, they finished 9th team.
Again we had boys missing in the under 13s. It was left to Max Bishop and Morris Rock to represent TVH. Max was well placed throughout and finished 23rd. Morris is also improving every race and will soon better his 50th place..
Melina Duer had her first race of the season after suffering from a back injury. She started well and was in the early teens but struggled near the end of the race and finished 16th, just in front of Niamh Murphy who was chasing her hard at the finish for 17th place. Olivia Colegrave thought she had had a bad run but conditions were not in her favour as her 39th place showed. Capucine Rousset was having a very good race to finish just behind her. Charlotte Cooney-Quinn looked a lot happier than in previous races and her 55th place was very pleasing as there were 64 finishers..
Likewise we had four under 15 boys competing in their race. With under 17s also in this race the competition was fierce. Shami Umashankar coped very well in his first Met League race and finished well up in 22nd place. Next home was Basil Rock who didn’t look very comfortable against older boys but will have better days. He finished 45th out of the 85 taking part. Nelson Gordon started fast and faded a bit but then chased Aidan Ferrand and pass him before the finish to end up in 57th place to Aidan’s 60th.
Results
U11B. 5 G Kimble 5:44; 7 Henry Turner 5:56; 10 R Rock 6:00. Team 2nd of 14.
U11G. 8 S Bishop 6:09; 11 S Robertson 6:14. Team 9th of 16.
U13B. 23 M Bishop 12:01; 50 M Rock 12:59. Team 14th of 22.
U13G. 3 K Price 12:03; 8 C Edge 12:40; 10 L Dafter 12:52; 18 A Robertson 13:05; 21 S Mueller 13:22;
24 Z Gordon 13:29; 27 O Sparks 13:43; 30 A Schoenen 14:05. Teams 1st & 6th.
U15/17B. 22 S Umashankar 15:22; 45 B Rock 16:27; 57 N Gordon 16:46; 60 A Ferrand 16:57.
Team 11th/24.
U15/17G. 16 M Duer 17:28; 17 N Murphy 17:31; 39 O Colegrave 18:56; 41 C Rousset 18:58;
55 C Cooney-Quinn 20:44. Team 7th/19
The Men’s Team were 1st in Div 2
The Women’s Team were 3rd. One point behind 2nd place. Tracey Barlow was 1st.