ATW Met League Race 1: Young Athletes
The season’s opening Active Training World Metropolitan Cross Country League fixture at Claybury heralded a new season, new challenges and for some, the uncertainty as to how last winter’s form would translate when stepping up to an older age group. For those with another year in last winter’s age group, would they be able to build on last year’s form and not succumb to the challenge from younger runners coming up? Some of these questions were clearly answered.
The headlines go to new signing Isabella Hoy who looked calm and at ease in winning the U13 Girls race with 26 second advantage over her nearest rival; she was well backed up by a solid team performance raising the hopes that we can retain the team trophy. Rosie Poole who had five straight wins in this competition last year coped admirably in the U15/17 age group picking up 5th place, 18” behind Amelia Barrett in 3rd place whilst in the U15/17M race, Canaan Solomon also handled the step up and his 4th place was only 4” down on Perry Rowan in 3rd, both of whom finished behind Shaftsbury’s Dee brothers.
Last year, Alfie Poole was one of our most consistent finishers in the U13 Boys despite not being old enough to score for the team; one year on and he challenged hard for 3rd place only just losing out in the sprint for the line by a single second to a TVH runner.
Overall, the turn-out was reasonable from our young athletes and we completed scoring teams in each race but our U17s were thin on the ground and we could do with additional representation. We did however have a clutch of non-scorers racing in our colours and expect that these will become qualified for future races
Behind Isabella in the U13Gs, Aiofe Guyatt was typically combative and engaged in a close tussle for 2nd place just losing out to a St Mary’s runner by a single second; Olivia Hounsome in 7th and Katie Petyt in 9th completed the scoring to give the team a 20 point advantage over TVH. Mia Hirons (18th), Katie Woodstock (19th) coped well in their debut races and managed to smile about their experiences afterwards whilst non-scorers Nancy Callagher (who finished 5th) and Megan Caswell (20th) also ran. For the U13Bs our second scorer behind Alfie Poole was James Wakefield whose 9th place represents good progress from last winter. In 16th we had Kyle Lundie making his debut, as were two under age non-scorers, Morgan Selway (29th) and Keelan Wilson (31st) with Chris Hogg backing up in 36th.
For the U15/17M, George Hoy was our 3rd runner home behind Perry and Canaan although George will have to wait until November before he is eligible to score. Harry Cavell and Taylor Reece were understandably anxious about moving up an age group but raced sensibly and came home in 40th and 51st respectively to complete the scoring before taking up their customary positions as on-course cheerleaders for the seniors. For the U15/17W, the ever dependable Stef Smith and Isobel Moss closed the scoring behind Amelia and Rosie with their 34th and 38th positions with Amy Edwards non-scoring in 30th hopefully available for the future.