Serif's bold debut is highlight at Southern 12-stage
Raif Serif gets his long leg underway.
Always drama at the Southern 12-stage: last year bad directions saw us slip 14 places from fifth in one leg, this year a fall on the final leg in fourth position left us wondering what could have been.
But that shouldn’t strikethrough Raif Serif’s excellent debut at a club fixture.
Winter Plate winner James Hancock got us off to a great start on leg one, smartly working his way through congestion to hand over in eighth. Back in form Jonny Scott outperformed expectations and improved us by two places on his short leg.
James Hancock in the bustle of leg one.
Then Sam Tyas found his long leg tough going after a fortnight battling illness - but great to have him here at all in the context of three other sicknotes on the day. Rob Kelly was a late promotion to the A team and he provided his best ever short leg to keep us tenth and within striking distance.
Fin Dyer is in the form of his life and he delivered a classy sub-27 long leg to pull us into seventh. Debutant Jonathan Coates ate another spot with a quick short leg in the thick of marathon training.
A year on from his first claim debut Max Heyden gained us another spot. Into fifth now and Ben Coughlan gave us the team’s second fastest short leg of the day to hold our position - no easy task when the race is getting strung out.
Then the rare and glorious sight of (Sir) Nick Goolab - his first race of any kind for a year - he said he felt rusty but he looked sharp and pulled us into fourth. Sam Sommerville ran a very good short leg here but was outkicked in the final 200m and we slipped to fifth.
Then debutant Raif Serif. He joined us in 2024 but almost immediately required surgery on a serious injury. In recent months he’s recorded some quickly improving times on the road including 14:21 for 5k, but had requested a short leg here as he focusses on the middle distances for track season.
So how would he run when a late injury meant he was back on the long leg? Answer: brilliantly. He matched Goolab’s 26:31 split and pulled us back into fourth and within sight of the medals with one leg to go.
But unfortunately that’s where the hunt for bronze ended. Callum Stewart’s terrible luck with injuries continued and he stacked it coming off a kerb halfway through his leg, limping tearfully home in what was eventually seventh - with Vicky Park and Aldershot painfully passing our hobbling hero on the track with just meters to go. It was brilliant of him to get round at all and saved us having to beg for qualification to the nationals if he’d DNFd. His injury cost us roughly four minutes and, most likely, fifth place.
The team coach dropped him at A&E on the way home and we’d later discover he’d badly damaged ankle ligaments. Wishing you a speedy recovery, Callum.
Three late dropouts meant our B team was sadly incomplete, but that doesn’t erase nine excellent runs, most of which would have been very much at home in A teams of the recent past. We were 18th when we ran out of bodies, comfortably good enough to qualify two teams for Sutton Park if we had the men for it.