Belles bag silver at South of England Cross Country Championships
Belgrave Harriers women finished second in the team standings at the South of England Cross Country Championships, while the men battled to seventh.
A very good turnout of twelve Belles took part in the Southern Championships held in Beckenham Place Park, with the scoring team of Juliet Hodder, Alex Barbour, Kristina Popadich and Laura Boehm winning well-deserved silver medals.
It was a cool cloudless day of brilliant sunshine, but the heavy rain in the previous week made the grass very soft and muddy in places adding to a tough undulating course.
Juliet Hodder professes to not like cross-country, and she had a difficult race at the same venue in the league match in November. But here she had an outstanding run finishing in eighth place, confirming the fine form she showed in the most recent league race when she was placed third.
She was followed home by new recruit Alex Barbour in 13th, another fine run. Alex is mainly a track specialist over 1500m, 3000, and the steeplechase but she showed what a great asset she is to the club with this excellent run.
Kristina Popadich has scored for the 'A' team many times since she joined the club, coming to live in London from Canada a couple of years ago. She had returned home for a visit over Christmas, but her 20th place showed she had lost none of her fitness.
Laura Boehm prefers mainly racing on the road and she perhapd went off a little fast, narrowly leading the race for the first couple of kilometers until she felt a pain in her achilles. Fortunately for the team she carried on to the finish despite dropping back to 24th place at the end.
Next to finish was Lara Mangan who seems to get better with every race, coming home in 39th. Then in 51st Meg Ellison posted a vastly improved run from her recent league outing. Meg was just ahead of the ever-reliable pair of Ella-May Hards in 53rd and Sam Munday in 56th.
Another improving with every race is Olivia Lucas, who is carefully building her fitness after long-term injuries, she finished in 64th, followed by Lydia Gallyer-Barnett in 69th. Unfortunately for the team, Lydia will be moving away shortly - we will miss her and wish her good luck for the future.
Lauren Liversidge is gaining experience with every race, and here she started far more positively, dropping back a little in the latter stages of the race. She came home just outside the top on hundred, a few ahead of Sara Ridmy who always gives her best in supporting the team.
Both finished with well over 200 runners behind them which just shows the quality of this team.
An under-strength Bels team placed seventh in the men’s standings, led home by James Hancock who finished an excellent 10th. Fin Dyer finished 40th, and Jonny Neville finished 64th.
Full results available here