English National CC: Parliament Hill - Young Athletes
Canaan Solomon made it a treble of Championship victories this winter as he added the National U13 Boys’ title to the Southern and Essex that he had already won this season; his victory looked well judged and comfortable as he engineered a 4 second margin over the silver medal winner Markum Lonsdale (Gateshead Harriers) in the final downhill run-in to the finish line. The other standout performances from our juniors on a fine day’s racing at Parliament Hill, were Harun Abdi’s 11th place against stiff competition in the U20 Men’s event and Amelia Barrett’s 17th in the 342 strong U15 Girls’ field.
Canaan’s gold medal winning run was fashioned from a good start which saw him head the field up Kite Hill from the gun but wisely elect not to chase down two glory seekers determined to crest the hill in the lead. Once over the top, the pace steadied and Canaan remained in the leading group which nervously opted to stick together rather than take advantage of any weak moments any of them encountered. The race followed this pattern until they arrived on the back of Kite Hill on the return leg when Canaan made his bid for victory. He looked at ease and in control of the race coming down the hill with a 15 metre advantage as he turned the corner into the finishing straight. With 5 runners closely strung out behind him, Lonsdale and Milner (Derby AC) took a few metres back but never enough to seriously threaten and with Canaan’s dad valiantly attempting to outsprint him whilst bellowing encouragement from the other side of the fence, it was left to Canaan to breast the tape first and collect gold whilst Lonsdale and Milner picked up silver and bronze whilst recording the same time as each other.
Our other U13 Boys were a little further down the field but all ran to par in the largest of the young athlete races of the day. James Wakefield was our second scorer in 258th, followed by Harry Cavell (332nd), Taylor Reece (346th) and Chris Hogg (359th).
Harun Abdi’s 11th place in the U20 Men’s race was highly competent, even if his own immediate post-race assessment was tinged with disappointment. Jonny Hay (Aldershot, Farnham and District) was a clear winner in this race having a 21 second advantage over teammate Harvey Dixon at the line with Bristol’s Charlie MacLean a second back in the bronze position. Our men’s team manager Terry McCarthy took a keen interest in this race as ordinarily the U20’s are part of his senior squad and in praising Harun’s effort afterwards persuaded him to see his race in a more positive light. Darren Southcott (63rd) and Liam Blaikie (124th) both had good runs, Liam in particular redeeming a poor first lap with a good second one, gaining a good 20 or 30 places in the process. Sam Benge, though admittedly not terribly fit, did a fine job by getting round in 185th to ensure a satisfying 8th team place.
Amelia Barrett showed great application with her 17th place finish in the U15 Girls’ event (won by Southern Champion Bobby Clay) and can look forward to her Inter-Counties and English Schools races in the coming weeks with some confidence. Jessica Burgess in her first Nationals had an excellent outing in 73rd and bottom year Isabel Levine (146th) was well inside the top half and put many much older runners to the sword with another good run.
Our four U13 Girls finished 20th in the team competition and this time, Edie Preece was our first scorer home in 69th but only a minute and 20 seconds down on the winner; Rosie Poole (83rd) did not run as well as she had hoped but was only 4 seconds behind Edie. Jodie Ratcliff (151st) was noticeably unsteady as she determinedly got herself over the line and Olivia Hounsome (270th) successfully combated her pre-race nervousness in her first Nationals with an admirable performance and hopefully more self–belief as a consequence.
Sidnie Sales (U20W), Perry Rowan (U15B) and James Stockings (U17M) all felt keen disappointment after their races, Sidnie coming home in 48th, Perry in 118th and James in 68th in their respective events. The reality of running major championships is that any runners having even a slight off-day will be quickly exploited in dense fields where 10 seconds can cover 15 or 20 runners so all of them will have drawn valuable experience from the day.
In total we had 19 runners in the junior races, lower than would be expected for a London based championship but the clash with the East London mini-marathon trial the following day proved a more attractive draw for some of our athletes. Those present on Hampstead Heath experienced an excellent and unrivalled event on what was probably the driest course seen here for this time of year – certainly a day not to be missed for cross country devotees.