Men take team silver, women bronze at Surrey county cross champs
Belgrave teams enjoyed their best county champs in recent memory on a beautiful day at the Denbies Vineyard near Dorking.
l-r Sam Gebreselassie, Reece Edwards, Jonny Scott, Jonny Neville, Nick Buckle and Callum Stewart with their silver medals.
Men
Belgrave men picked up their first silverware of the cross country season with an impressive display at Denbies.
Despite many teammates prioritising a crunch Surrey League fixture the following week, 13 men turned out to run including eight who might score at Mitcham.
First man home for us was marathoner Reece Edwards in fifth overall, much more comfortable at this 12.2k distance than the shorter stop-start affair at Wimbledon Common in November.
AFD’s Joe Morwood leads out the first lap with Sam Gebreselassie (17) and Reece Edwards (16) to his left.
Only three positions and 30 seconds back from Reece was Callum Stewart with perhaps his best ever run for us - a superb, assured performance that saw him work through the positions over the three laps and finish ahead of a number of quality runners.
Callum passed Sam Gebreselassie around the start of the third and final lap and for a time we were worried that Sam had dropped out - but Sam is much tougher than that. Still only his second cross country race - and a longer distance than he’s used to - Sam had overcooked the first lap and is learning valuable lessons; we’re sure he’ll be medalling in these races over the next few years, he just needn’t do it from the front. He was still home in 22nd overall and with enough left for a fiesty finish to outsprint AFD’s Jake Bowles.
Nick Buckle was our fourth scorer, back to form in 25th, just ahead of Jonnies Scott (28th) and Neville (29th). Scott had been tailing training partner Neville for all of 12.1km, leaving just enough to stick the knife in on the home stretch, the bastard.
Just outside our six scorers, Matt Edgar (34th) and Ewan Somerville (35th) also kept eachother company the whole race and it reflects well on our depth that they could have swapped in for either of our 4th-6th scorers and we’d have kept our silver medal.
Nathan Visick and Tom Lole had strong runs; Valentin Rigori, Chris Warren and Rob Norville made it 13 across the line for us in total.
Results
Women
Another medal for the Belles, this time in the counties.
Jess, Lizzie, Natalie and Laura with their medals.
An excellent turnout of nine women by the Belles - the strongest in the counties for many years -produced very well-deserved bronze team medals. They finished behind Aldershot (who had four women in the first seven) and Guildford, but ahead of all our other local rivals.
The team were led home in 13th place by a very strong run from Jess Saunders. Jess has become an important member of the team, racing regularly, and improving on the country with every race. She seems to be the team's lucky charm; this is the fourth time she has won a medal this season.
With regular Surrey Country competitor Sophie Cowper nursing an achilles injury and clearly not at her best, the question was; who would be the other three scorers for the team?
Amazingly, the next six Belles all finished within just over 30 seconds of eachother. This was packing at its very best: Lizzie Goldie-Scot in 24th, followed by Natalie Beadle in 26th just ahead of Laura Goodson in 27th. These were the four team scorers. But the train kept coming with Mimi Corden- Lloyd in 29th, Sarah Dewhirst with her best ever run in 30th and club president Fiona Maddocks making a very welcome appearance in 31st. They loved being able to see and encourage each other around the course and of course pushed runners from other teams further down to reduce our score.
Sophie bravely kept going despite her injury to finish in 38th, and Emily McHugh in her first ever race ran well to place 64th out of 140 runners.
Belles medals so far this season:
Surrey relays silver
South of England relays bronze
Reigate relays gold and bronze
London XC champs gold
South of Thames champs gold
Surrey county champs bronze
RESULTS
1. N. Brown (AFD) 32:16, 2. G. Bruinvels (AFD) 32:50, 3. N. Scott (AFD) 33:04, ....13. J. Saunders 35:58, 24. L. Goldie-Scot 38:13, 26. N. Beadle 38:22, 27. L. Goodson 38:25, 29. M. Corden-Lloyd 38:37, 30. S. Dewhirst 38:44, 31. F. Maddocks 38:46, 38. S. Cowper 39:52, 64. E. McHugh 44:10.
TEAMS
1. AFD 13, 2. G&G 54, 3. Belgrave Harriers 90.
Elsewhere
Second-claimer Dylan Evans won individual gold at the Middlesex champs, taking home the trophy held by Nick Goolab for the last two years. Ben Hurley was a good 31st on a very muddy day at Greenford. [Results]
On the same course Yasmin Marghini won individual silver wearing Belgrave colours on her return to the club after a few years away racing for Boise State, Herne Hill and Blackheath & Bromley. [Results]
James Fox was fourth at the Hertfordshire champs at Stanborough. [Results]
Conall McNally was 17th at the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire combined county champs at Berry Hill. [Results]