Results

Our young athletes finished the cross country season in style with some great performances in the final league match at Wolverhampton. Competing in cold and blustery conditions the team finished 4th out of 20 clubs on the day. The strong result meant we finished the 5 race season in 4th place overall. The outstanding performance came from Charlotte Prince who won her fifth consecutive race to claim the title in the U11 girls race. Well done Charlotte!!! The U11 girls secured bronze medals in the team event. There were further medals for the U13 girls (silver) and U11 boys (bronze).

• U11 boys – Ethan Cook (6th),
• U11 girls – Amaya Tisdale (11th)
• U13 boys – Jack Wakefield (10th), Ethan Patel (19th)
• U13 girls – Lucy Carey (16th), Sian Duval (20th)
• U15 girls – Charlotte Hey (6th)
• U17 Women – Ellen Humpherston (12th)

For the first time this season, the men and women competed at the same venue in the season ending fixtures of their respective cross country leagues as they raced at Warwick University, Coventry on what was a damp and miserable day.

Racing first on a fast but muddy course the women’s team did themselves proud finishing 3rd on the day out of 26 teams competing. Finishing 1st for Sutton and 3rd overall Georgia Curry ran a superb race following Katie Ingle on the 1st lap and then moving coming through to beat her team mate by 4 seconds, a reversal of the previous league race.

Andrea Deathridge again competed strongly finishing 15th with Georgia Delaney having her best race of the season finishing 60th and scoring for the team for the 1st time. Emily Campion, Rachel Thebridge and Helen Elsoueidi ran strongly and completed the team.

At the season ended with Sutton finishing in 8th place overall out of 26 teams and without the early season injuries and illness could have easily finished in the top 3.

The men’s race followed, on a course that had been cut up by the earlier women’s race. Lying in 11^th place at the start of the day, Sutton were fighting hard to ensure their First division survival with the bottom three of 16 teams facing relegation. Another excellent run by Shaun Evans, coming home in 7^th place led the team to a respectable 10^th place on the day with strong supporting runs from Ollie Harradence, Joe Spruce, Alex Blackham, Tom Chew and Simon Corker. This gave Sutton a final league position of 11^th place ensuring top flight competition again next season.

Over the campaign, scorers for the first team have come from 10 different athletes reflecting the strength in depth within the squad with both Blackham and Corker scored for the first time this season, while Evans, Harradence and Chew scored in all 4 races.

The B team finished in 12^th place in the second string competition with Rob Andrew, Mark Rickards, Fred Tremblay, Trevor Lewis, Paul Jenkins and Matt Stenson scoring while Matt Powel provided great competition for the final place finishing one place behind Stenson in sprint for the finish.

On an individual front, Shaun Evans finished the season in 6^th place over all in the senior men’s competition and 2^nd place in the junior men’s competition for athletes still under 20. Well done to Shaun and the club as a whole.

Here’s Margaret’s report from the Midland Championships:

Some of Royal Sutton Coldfield’s top athletes were in action at the weekend in the Midland Championships staged at Prestwold Hall, Loughborough. The course was a true test of endurance with a stiff headwind over the first half of the course.

Pick of the races was the under 20 Women’s event and star of the show was Georgia Curry.  Never out of the top three she ran a tactically mature race, shadowing the early pace-maker, only conceding top spot in the final fifty metres. A silver medal should secure her selection for the Home Countries International to be held in Wales in March. Completing the line-up were Georgia Delaney in 22nd and Emily Campion in 24th and they were rewarded with bronze team medals.  Ellen Humpherston was Sutton’s sole representative in the under 17 women’s race which was run in conjunction with the under 20’s. Ellen has another year in this age group and was pleased to finish in 14th.

The under 20 men’s race was a high quality event. Shaun Evans had a good race and sat in on the early pace but couldn’t quite hold on to the leaders and finished a creditable 4th. Alex Jones ran strongly, crossing the line in 17th and Alex Blackham, having his first outing of the season, ran well in 24th.

The under 17 men’s race saw Tom Parkes cross the line in 43rd and Ben Horton in 47th.

The senior men’s race was over a gruelling nine miles and Sutton had two representatives.  Joe Spruce had a great race to finish 64th with Tom Chew in 134th.

Here’s Steve’s report from last weekend’s XC:

Royal Sutton’s senior men were in action last Saturday at Coventry in the third round of the cross country league. On a fast and slightly shorter course than normal at Coundon Park in Coventry the men’s team, depleted by a number of runners due to injury and illness, again took on the cream of the Midlands top cross country runners. The standard on the day was the strongest of all races so far this season yet Shaun Evans and Ollie Harradence set off strongly following their county championship winning runs the week before in the junior men and masters over 35 events respectively.

A larger than normal lead group of over 20 runners, including Evans, broke away early and on the three lap course, this group slowly split up with Evans coming home first for the club in 14th place followed by Ollie Harradence in 35th place. The A team was completed by Alex Jones, Joe Spruce, Tom Chew and Rob Andrew bringing the team home in 12th place on the day. This result saw the club slip one place in the table from 10th to 11th however with one final fixture remaining in February the club sits in relative mid-table security safely above the relegation battle.

The B team scorers on the day were Simon Corker, Fred Tremblay, Matt Powell, Matt Bennett, Paul Jenkins and Iain Mackie with Trevor Lewis also finishing for the club.

Here’s Graham report on our young throwers who were in early season action at the Alexander Stadium yesterday:

Well, 2017 started well at a cold and wet Alexander Stadium yesterday. We had 4 Hammer Throwers competing and results were as follows.

• Sherri Smart (Senior Women) 2nd
• Chrissie Prince (U20) 1st
• James Ward (U17) 1st New PB 25.96 metres on his first Comp in new Age Group and heavier Hammer
• Meghan Sharman (U15) 1st New PB and Club Record 29.53 metres

The New Season looks like it might even be better than last year. Big thanks to Chrissie Prince for all the coaching she has been doing with the group and for looking after the squad during my holidays. A lot of the credit goes to Chrissie.

Here’s Roy’s Report from the Women’s XC League clash at Wolverhampton yesterday: