The English National Cross-Country Championships returned to the City of London on Saturday at the iconic venue Parliament Hill, often called the home of cross-country.
Herne Hill Harriers were represented in all 10 races throughout the day on a tough course around which very muddy ground added to the challenge of the hilly terrain for the huge fields of club athletes. Harriers’ best results generally came in the youngest age groups with national medals claimed in three races, rounded off with a near miss individually in the senior women.
The Under 15 boys took pride of place with their squad depth helping to win team silver medals with a quartet featuring a couple of newcomers to the podium compared to their recent team successes at county and area level. The successful scoring team was James Clements-Nash 10th, Tommy Clerkin 16th, Luca Boulton 27th and Arnold Duan 44th.
With the winning team scores margin being only five points, Herne Hill were maybe unlucky not to claim a set of gold medals as Caspian Holmes their leading runner during much of the season suffered a fall during the race and pluckily finished 68th, such are the hazards in these events. Exceptional backup came from Zachary Morris 50th, Ed Cunniffe 55th, Holmes 68th and Leau Roch 78th, all in the top 80 of 343 runners.
While the boys were being presented with their medals, Skyla O’Brien was sprinting strongly into the finish funnel to place a brilliant third in the under 13 girls’ race. O’Brien has enjoyed a fine season with strong performances in the Surrey League and in the other recent championship races but saved her best result for the biggest event.
Harriers also took on the best in the country with aspirations for team medals in the under 13 boys’ race and so it proved with an excellent third place finish. Their bronze medals were claimed thanks to strong group packing by Henry Kucerov 24th, Josiah Aldham 35th, John Reynolds 48th and Ben Thomas 55th. Ted Jones didn’t make the scoring team but also produced a good run in 68th.
Lucy Jones backed up her recent England team representation by finishing in the highest ever position for a Herne Hill athlete in the senior women’s race with her superb fourth place.
The 26-year-old has enjoyed a stellar season, returning to top level racing a decade after having been a schoolgirl star. As well as her senior international debut, she has been crowned London Cross-Country Champion on the same course and won three out of four Surrey League races. Any frustration at falling only three seconds shy of a medal should be set aside on the realisation of the enormity of her achievement.
Jones led a depleted the women’s team to tenth place on the day, with the scoring team completed by Jenny Nandi 87th, Helena Keenan 109th and Shannon Sinclair 218th.
A strong turnout of more than twenty senior men brought home a good 15th team position in the six to score contest and 12th for teams with their first nine men scoring. These fields are always huge, with 1,783 men in this race alone on Saturday which included three Harriers men in the first 100.
The nine team counters were Arlo Ludewick 43rd, Andrew Clarke 81st, Brandon Dewar 94th, Daniel Shaw 217th, Jeff Cunningham 247th, Matt Raymond 344th, Matt Cartwright 376th, James Nutt 400th and Mat Hudson 454th.
In the other age groups teams were incomplete, but some notable individual results came from Sophie Mendes 32nd and Annabel Wainwright 82nd among under 15 girls, Kaitlin Hewitt 38th under 20 woman and Maeve Minielly 86th under 17 woman.
In road racing on a windy Sunday morning two Herne Hill athletes produced good runs at the Wokingham Half Marathon.
Gaby Reynolds finished 10th of all females with 77:50, a time that ranks her third W40 for this year so far. Among the men, Harry Roberts improved his PB by more than a minute with his 71:14 clocking.
At the London Winter Run 10km U20 Charlie Wood was 20th overall with 33:47 and Ben Paviour 39th with 34:31, which saw him finish first in the M50 category.
Geoff Jerwood