Sam Gebreselassie breaks 30' as Bels finish 7th at British 10k champs
A beaming Sam Gebreselassie was congratulated - and photographed - by clubmate Craig Ruddy after the race.
Sam Gebreselassie snuck under 30 minutes for 10k for the first time as part of a Belgrave men’s team that finished 7th overall at the Vitality 10000, incorporating the British 10k team championships.
Runners enjoyed near perfect conditions on a great day out in central London on a winding course that suited good racing if not excessively fast times. Aldershot’s Ellis Cross grabbed the headlines by beating 39-year-old Mo Farah to the individual British 10k title.
Team scoring took the cumulative time of the three fastest finishers from every four runners entered by each club. In another illustration of our depth, out of 321 complete men’s teams Belgrave placed 7th and 18th - the country’s highest placed B string.
Henry Hart (left) and Steve Gardner hunted together for nearly the entire race.
That 7th place would likely have been at least third had it not been for the unfortunate withdrawal of Nick Goolab (certainly in 29:00 shape if not better) on the morning of the race.
Sam’s 29:58 was perhaps an overdue sub-30 clocking for an athlete who ran 14:19 on the track last year, but quality 10k races have been few and far between over the last few years and splits of 15:04/14:54 showed how perfectly he paced this one.
TM Steve Gardner was the second Bel home in 32:47, some 15 seconds ahead of Henry Hart, with whom he’d run side by side for the first 9km. Henry had been off running for nearly three weeks after an unfortunate disagreement with a deer in Richmond Park and did well to make this one at all.
Jonny Neville completed the team of four only a fortnight after running Boston Marathon with a creditable 33:18, although the oddity of the scoring system meant his clocking wasn’t added to our tally at all.
In 33:39, Rob Kelly was the first scorer for our second string but admitted he struggled just three days after a big 15:33 5k PB in Battersea Park.
Next home was Bradley Courtney-Pinn who tempoed this effort in 34:10, nearly three minutes down on his PB, but still struggling to feel fresh after a string of illnesses followed a big marathon effort in February.
Third B-scorer was Alex Mills, improving his 10k PB from 34:38 to 34:13 here. Oliver Daniel was was the next Belgravian home in 35:39 to finish the team of four.
Along with Alex, James Morris was another Matt Welsh-coached Belgravian to improve his PB at this race, improving his best by 14 seconds to 38:04.