Turkish Delight for European Cross Champion Phoebe

Herne Hill Harriers enjoyed one of the proudest days in their 135-year history at the European Cross Country Championships on Sunday morning as for the first time the club had two athletes representing a Great Britain team in the same event in the Under 23 Women’s race.

At the front, Phoebe Anderson became the 2024 European U23 Women’s Cross Country Champion and led Team GB to team gold medals in Antalya, Turkey. The 22-year-old Columbia NYC student produced a strong final 200m sprint to take a win that few people could have foreseen. 

Putney resident Anderson was selected for the team on the strength of recent performances in USA collegiate races and delivered on the day in the best possible way. Always in the lead group throughout the 6.3km race, she dug in when this pack had whittled down to the three eventual medalists and once the final obstacle on the lap was cleared was the strongest finisher, crossing the line five seconds to the good.

The event was screened live on the BBC iPlayer and this surprise win was described by commentators Steve Cram and Paula Radcliffe as the British performance of the day. 

Anderson is due to graduate before the end of this year and after a few months of dedicated training in the new year she then plans to spend a further year in the USA studying for a master’s degree. Her athletics aim will be to try to break into the British senior women’s team.

Her club mate Poppy Craig-McFeely, one of the youngest in the same race at only 20, placed 58th as part of the victorious squad despite a very nasty spike wound to her foot sustained at the start of the race. 

Craig-McFeely battled through great pain to help her team. She will have learned much from her first international major championship experience, leaving Turkey with a measure of both excitement and disappointment and will hope for much better luck when her next opportunity comes along.

Many domestic races over the weekend were cancelled due to the dangers presented by Storm Darragh, but Anderson was not the only Harriers female to claim a race win.

Charlotte Davies returned to her hometown Stevenage with the aim of running a half marathon time that would qualify her for a championship entry for next year’s London Marathon. Not to be thwarted by very wet and windy weather, Davies was among the first half dozen overall and was the first woman to finish the ATW Stevenage Winter Half, clocking 81:31, a PB by over four and a half minutes and within the time standard she was seeking. 

Club mate Megan Gildea was fourth female with a PB 86:32, an improvement of around three minutes on her previous best, weather conditions notwithstanding, as both women enjoyed a successful day. 

Geoff Jerwood

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