Southern Inter Counties CC 2009

The annual Southern Inter Counties CC, involving Essex, Surrey, Hants, Beds, Herts and Suffolk, was held at Biggleswade, in Bedfordshire, last Saturday with a number of the club's young athletes representing Essex. Two athletes from Alistair Holford's training group at Ashton, Robbie Meadows and Liam Blaikie, came away with silver team medals. Ronnie Sparke had to turn down a Hertfordshire vest in the U20 race after being invited to represent his country in Italy.

In the U17 men's race, Robbie Meadows felt a little flat and lost 3 places in the finishing straight, but he was fourth counter for Essex in 12th place, and thus earned a silver medal. Alex Cornwell, in the same race, finished 22nd. In the U15 Boys race, Liam Blaikie achieved the best Woodford position of the day, 9th, which made him third Essex counter as, again, they finished second county. James Stockings, in his first year in the category, was 22nd.

Jess Docking ran well for 14th in the U20 Women's race, but Essex packed four in 12 to secure the team silver, leaving Jess as extremely useful backup. In the U17 Women's race, too, our representative, Claudia Conway, ran well but finished outside the Essex medal-winning four. Claudia dropped back to 17th after placing around 9th for the first lap, while Essex yet again closed 4 in 12. 

Georgina Ferrari did not have her best day, finishing 37th in the Girls U15 race. In the U13 Girls race, Ellie Foster won her first Essex honour and performed well on her debut, finishing 36th. Teammate Joanne Cywinski dnf'd in the same race, after not fully recovering from a midweek hockey injury.

Elsewhere, another of Alistair Holford's group, 17-year old Darren Southcott, made his road 5K debut in the Last Friday of the Month 5K. He finished 8th in 17.31. Darren, like Robbie Meadows and Alex Cornwell, will be stepping up to the senior Met League CCs next winter, so this type of race against seniors will have been a useful experience.

And a graduate of Richard Thurston's group, U20 Andrew Mariani, who is studying at Loughborough, clocked 26.59 for 44th in the popular Alsager 5 race in the Midland, won in a very fast 23.25 by Southern CC champion Phil Wicks.