Herne Hill Harriers youngsters enjoyed more success with three top ten finishes at the National cross country relays in Mansfield, including superb and exciting silver medals for the Under 15 girls team of Lucy Olsen, Zoe Tompkins & Alex Brown and a top four finish for the under 13 boys.
The Under 15 girls was undoubtably the most exciting race of the day with three teams Basingstoke, Blackheath & Bromley & Herne Hill Harriers battling for the medals neck and neck down the finishing straight, After putting the team in contention through Lucy Olsen’s fourth on leg one and Zoe Tompkins moving into third on leg 2 Alex set off in pursuit of Basingstoke and Blackheath nine seconds down on the leader, Alex steadily reduced the lead and was in contention with 400m metres to go, coming into the final straight all three clubs went into the final short hill level, Alex charged up the hill & narrowly took the lead but former member Katy Ann McDonald was just too strong in the final 100m to pull clear for Blackheath.
Lucy OLSEN, Alex Brown and Zoe TOMPKINS
Nethertheless it was a superb performance by the U15 girls team with Alex winning the fastest lap award and Zoe enjoying her first national medal. To show out depth in that agegroup our B team were an excellent 14th & C team 25th and English School medalists Saskia Millard & Eloise O’Shaunghnessy were missing.
The Under 13 boys had another exciting race after Mohammed Ali ran well on leg one for 10th place, Jacob Alley kept the team in contention but Oscar Millard had a lot to do going into final leg taking over in 15th – Oscar charged through the field moving into fourth with 600m to go and gave chase for the bronze medal closing the gap with every stride but just failed to catch the third runner by 30 metres. This was our highest placing by an Under 13 boys team in these championships & Oscar was the eighth fastest runner.
Our under 13 girls of Clarissa Nicholls, Lulu King & Lily Newton were also top ten finishers finishing in eighth place whilst our B team were 32nd and our under 17 women’s team of Daisy Setyabule, Kate Brown & Alice Setyabule ran really well in 20th with our B team 45th. Our under 15 boys finished 45th.