Belgrave’s Yasmin Marghini secured her spot on the plane to Turin at the Liverpool Cross Challenge.

Liverpool’s Sefton Park once again hosted the GB trial race for the European XC Championships and delivered its usual fireworks. Attracting the very best talent in the UK, the Liverpool Cross Challenge promises GB vests to the six first U23 and senior athletes. What ensues is stacked fields and explosive competition.

The Belles

The women’s race featured Belgravians Sarah Astin and Yasmin Marghini. Sarah had been in fine form all year long, clocking PBs in every distance from the 1500m to the road 10km. Notably, she put in a swift appearance at the Commonwealth Games where she represented her native Isle of Man to clock an impressive 15:39 over 5000m. She was also a staple in our road relay teams in Spring as well as in Autumn, clocking the fastest long leg of the day at the South of England relays in Milton Keynes.

Yasmin was more of an unknown coming into the trials. She finished 2nd at the Middlesex XC Championships in January and a hugely impressive 35th at the NCAA cross championships in Oklahoma just a week ago, but we weren’t to know how that would translate on English mud.

Both attacked Sefton Park’s 8.1km course with vigour and found themselves in good positions - Sarah trying to hang on to lead pack and Yasmin more conservatively working her way through the field. By the finish, though, they finished 10th and 11th, with Sarah in 7th senior spot and Yasmin 4th U23. Agonisingly that left Sarah just one place outside qualification but happily Yasmin deservedly earned her first GB vest and will fly out to Turin.

The Bels

The men had three representatives in the north west. Second claimers Ian Crowe-Wright and Dylan Evans are well-known in the road and XC squad as big hitters in the Surrey League - but what sort of form would they show in a field of this quality? Ian made his intentions clear in the first lap of the race where he stuck to the heels of the leaders in the form of Emile Cairess, Marc Scott and Hugo Milner. The heels of Marc Scott, incidentally, were not that unfamiliar to him, having battled the GB international at the Surrey League in Wimbledon Common just a few weeks prior. All was looking well, but the thick mud churned up by thousands of runners and a flash rain shower before the men’s start took its toll on Ian’s legs.

“I thought I may as well give it a go with the big lads but I found it tough,” he said. While he faded in the final lap as winner Cairess pushed a brutal pace at the front, he held on for 26th place to finish in stellar company. “Not a bad result in the mud!”, he concluded.

Dylan was wearing his Shaftesbury Barnet colours but followers may remember him as the individual winner of the last Surrey League where he represented Belgrave’s claret and gold. Judging by his Strava caption, Dylan was in a similar mind to Ian. He “rolled the dice, but got rolled”. It was a 37th place for the Australian in the end. You’ve got to admire both of them for seizing the opportunity and doing their very best on the day. Chapeau!

Further down the field, Arne Dumez finished in 138th.

Full results can be found here.