Essex CC Championships: Young Athletes
The spectators watching Saturday’s Essex Championships described the course at Hadleigh as a ‘proper cross-country course’; the young athlete competitors probably felt less complimentary as it was indeed a true test of their physical and mental strength. With fine views (Canvey’s oil refinery excepted) across the Thames estuary, it combined fast downhill sections, cloying mud and steep climbs with a constant change of gradient and surface that never allowed runners to find a steady rhythm. Despite this, there were a surprising number of smiling faces amongst our finishers.... but perhaps that was just out of relief at having finished.
For their troubles, our young athletes netted a couple of team medals, a bronze individual medal and six guaranteed Inter-County selections (given to the first five finishers) with another four in with a shout.
The individual bronze was won by Canaan Solomon in the U13B race where he finished 3 seconds off silver with team-mate Daniel Rowden just under a minute behind in 7th and with an outside chance of Inter-County selection. This race was the first of the day and it saw several runners falling in the fast downhill start. James Wakefield (28) and Chris Hogg (31) competed manfully in their first Championships and the team closed on 69 points, just 2 points behind Orion who won the bronze medal.
Our gold team medal was won by our U20W team of Claudia Conway (5th), Sidnie Sales (7th), Becky Hewitt (10th) and Kate Stockings (11th) from a small field of 12 but swollen by the U17 women who raced at the same time. Here, Lauren McGregor (4th) was our only finisher after Lauren Freeman sensibly elected not to race despite having loyally arrived feeling unwell but intending to race nonetheless. Chelmsford’s Jessica Judd continued her winning streak by taking this year’s U17W title by two minutes over the next runner (an U20W) and two and a half minutes up on the nearest U17W!
Chelmsford’s young athletes were the dominant club this year, picking up four of the eight team golds available as well as a team bronze. In the U17M event, our athletes picked up the silver behind Chelmsford, who packed 4 in 9 to our 4 in 22. A back in form Liam Blaikie came 5th, 10 seconds down on Basildon’s winner Jack Fitsall. James Stockings (7th), Chris Sear (12th) and Ryan Dunne (22nd) made up the scoring team and were supported by Sean Kenny (30th) and Sam Benge (about as far from his favoured territory as he could get) in 32nd.
In the other age groups, Amelia Barrett showed steely determination to gain a fine 4th place in the biggest junior field of the day, the U15G race comprising 46 runners. Ellie Foster (23rd), Isobel Moss (30th), Lucy Hayes (freshly back from Barbados the day before in 37th), Billie Bradley (40th) and Jessica Edwards (43rd) supported with the team finishing in 6th place.
Perry Rowan also picked up Inter-County selection with his 4th place in the U15B event whilst Elliot Joseph (25th) was unlucky not to pick off a couple of runners in the home straight with a real ‘eyeballs out’ sprint for the line. Our U13G team finished 5th with Alicia McArdell our highest placed runner with an excellent 6th, Jodi Ratcliff (14th), Rosie Poole (16th) and Katherine Myers (34th) scoring for the team with a joyful Niamh Bartlett with several runners behind her, in 40th.