English Schools Cup Regional Final: Felsted School, Thursday 6th Nov.
This event proved to be a very good day for Woodford athletes as no fewer than nine athletes have qualified through their schools to compete in the English Schools Cup Final to be held at Princethorpe College, Rugby. This is a team event and in each age group, per gender, your school needed to finish in the top three schools to qualify. The course was very flat grassland with a slight incline on each of the longer laps.
Senior Boys 5.1K
We had five Woodies representing Davenant hoping to qualify. The standard of this race is best illustrated by the fact that the athlete in 13th spot, from Ipswich, is a 4-minute flat 1500m runner. The race started out slowly with no one wanting to force it in the lead. After 1k Sam Horsley broke away from a pack that contained the eventual winner, Rowe from Coopers School. Going into the final lap of 1450m, Rowe caught the leader with Harry Stockill and Oscar Eaton sitting in 3rd and 4th place. At the end Rowe won in 15' 35", just ahead of Horsley, but Lachlan Dyer, a 1.52 800 runner, and Assanya, a schools International steeplechaser, had both passed our lads, leaving Harry 5th in 15' 51" and Oscar 8th in 15.59. Luka Norden was 10th, outkicking Harry Wright, a 3.57 1500m runner. The school did not have to wait long at all as Daniel Arnold, racing against boys two years older, stormed through to place 19th. Credit to Josh Stephenson, recovering from infection, who rallied well for 27th.
The boys did not have to wait long to find out they were the winners and through to the final next month, which will be screened live through Vinco Sport. They were victors over two top schools in Essex, Southend High School and Fitzwimark School. Running for Chigwell in the same race, Joe Oates was 28th and George Worwood 36th.
Davenant's triumphant Senior Boys. L to R: Josh Stephenson, Oscar Eaton, Harry Stockill, Daniel Arnold and Luka Norden
Junior Girls 2.8K
The girls from Chigwell School went into the race with an outside chance of qualifying. First home, having a great run was Chloe Ward in 7th. She looked the part in training at Ashton on Tuesday so this performance was no surprise. 3rd scorer for the school was Lottie Oates in 16th spot. Lottie is still recovering from a nasty ear infection. Next home was Phoebe Woods, having a really good run in 26th, and close on hand was Maia Lalani in 32nd. Again, the girls did not have to wait long and to their delight learned they had grabbed 2nd place, meaning they will be in the final next month.
Junior Boys 2.8K
Jack Tonge made a great effort to place 10th, just 30 seconds down on the winner.
It was a great day for our athletes with nine of them now due to be up in Rugby in December, leaving the XC Team Manager with a big headache as they will be missing from Met League 3 at Wormwood Scrubbs on the same day.