Young Athletes Excel at Home Match
After all the recent rain, the Scrubs remained very wet. The race day was bright and not too cold. The large turnout of TVH athletes helped to make the club championships, included in the events, an added incentive to do well. Due to the great numbers taking part, the full results were seriously delayed.
For the first time since joining the league, TVH are the girls league champions. This is largely due to Amelia Casey winning the under 17 title and Melina Duer the under 15 title. Also to all the girls who gained valuable points over the season. Well done.
The first race was the under 11 girls 1500m in which we had seven competing. A great fourth place by Olivia Sparks and a fifth place by Sasha Mueller set the tone for the rest of the day. Sasha won silver medal for the season and Olivia bronze. Third Valley girl who is new to cross country was Amelia Seaton who won bronze in the club championships and was nineth in the field of 47. With traffic congestion all around the M4, Charlotte Long arrived late but then opted to run in the under 13 race.
Max Bishop led the under 11 boys race from the start and won the race by four seconds. Sol Inglis also did well to finish 12th. Henry Turner came back from injury and did remarkably well for 17th place. With four other Valley runners competing the team finished in second place.
There was some confusion in the under 13 girls race when the second girl was wrongly credited as TVH. Our first girl was Lily Dafter in eighth place. She should have been running in Rugby but the schools race was called off due to a waterlogged course.
Knowing his reputation was at stake, Basil Rock was back near his best in seventh place. Alfie Turner was only four seconds behind in ninth place. Adrian Ferrand just pipped Charlie Rollo for the bronze medal in the club championship.
In the under 15 girls event it was Charlotte Buckley all the way, beating all the under 13 boys except one. Melina Duer was second and won the league title over the season. In fourth place Niamh Murphy beat Philippine Poupart-Lafarge for the first time to collect bronze. Lily Cheshire also had an impressive run for sixth place and she also should have been at Rugby. TVH easily won the team race and the ‘B’ team were second.
Sadly once again we had no under 15 boys taking part. But we had four women taking part in the under 17 race. Margaux Couffon was having her only run of the season and did well to beat Amelia Casey who had run four races during the season and was league champion.
Likewise we also had four men in their under 17 race. Lucillo Burrell was a good fourth and Oliver Weintraub came back from injury to finish eighth. Max Buckley had a rare outing and came away with the bronze medal.
U11B. Team 2nd.
1 M Bishop 7:27; 12 S Inglis 8:03; 17 H Turner 8:15; 24 G Kimble 8:24; 36 L Doubois-Burrows 9:08; 43 S Dye 9:19; 46 J Aubrey-Johnson 9:48.
U11G. 4 O Sparks 4:52; 5 S Mueller 4:54; 9 A Seaton 5:01; 28 A Hopkirk 5:26; 37 M Polito 5:51; 41 E Low 6:11; 47 K Brown.
U13B. Team 2nd.
7 B Rock 10:36; 9 A Turner 10:40; 17 A Ferrand 10:58; 18 C Rollo 10:59; 27 N Gordon 11:30; 32 N Mahmoud 12:03.
U13G. Team 1st.
8 L Dafter 7:59; 11 M Casey 8:04; 12 O Colegrave 8:04; 27 M Salkeld 9:24; 29 C Long 10:10.
U15G. Team 1st.
1 C Buckley 10:08; 2 M Duer 11:11; 4 N Murphy 11:23; 5 P Poupart-Lafarge 11:28; 6 L Cheshire 11:29; 14 l Salkeld 12:08; 17 C Rousset 12:40; 18 C Cooney-Quinn 12:43.
U17M. Team 2nd.
4 L Burrell 16.57; 8 O Weintraub 17:48; 10 M Buckley 17:50; 11 N Duer 18:33.