Young Athletes’ success at the UK Inter-counties
Thames Valley Harriers had nine young athletes representing Middlesex in the Inter-Counties Championships in Birmingham. The best performance came from Charlotte Buckley who finished a magnificent 6th in the under 13 girl’s race.
Roy Clarridge reports:
After her frustrating start to the year with flu or bad colds, she finally got back to running well on Saturday. With her usual sensible start she started moving through the field up the large climb which started 400m after the downhill start. When she came down the hill again she had moved up from around 30th to 12th. During the second part of the race she improved and caught the fifth girl on the run-in but lost out in the sprint to finish for a very good 6th place. The winner and second girl were well in front but if she had fully recovered her fitness we think she could have made third place. The improvement of 20 places from her national gave a good indication of how much better she is feeling. The rest of the Middlesex team also did well to bring them home in fourth place.
The Middlesex Under 15 Girls team had TVH providing the first three scorers. Kosana Weir had a great run to finish 26th, well in front of sister India who was second scorer. Rising to the occasion, Olivia Olsher improved her position throughout the race to gain third team spot before the finish. Verity Walker did remarkably well to finish 123rd after a nasty gash in a race the previous week. In the Boys Under 15 race Lucillo was also the first Middlesex athlete home in 31st position.
Called in to run in the Under 17 Women’s race as a replacement, Clover Godsall showed her strength to finish 160th. Maddy Turner was unlucky to be just outside the first 100 with her 104th place with another positive run. In the Men’s race Karim Mahiddine had a good run to be the third Middlesex man home.
Under 13 Girls, 6 C Buckley 13:04.
Under 15 Girls. 26 K Weir 19:31; 43 I Weir 19:50; 86 O Olsher 20:27; 123 V Walker 20:27
Under 15 Boys. 31 L Burrell 18:04
Under 17 Women. 104 M Turner 23:30; 160 C Godsall 24:42.
Under 17 Men. 80 K Mahiddine 21:18.