North Yorkshire Schools Cross Country Champs 18th January 2003

The North Yorkshire Schools X-C Championships on Saturday 18th were hosted by Risedale School, at Hipswell near Catterick Garrison. The rain from preceding weeks had made a muddy course around the school playing fields and adjacent farmland but the day itself was mild and dry. Richmond and Zetland Harriers had 24 runners in competition, all bar two for Hambleton & Richmondshire District. Along with Harrogate & Craven, Scarborough and York & Selby, each District selects up to twelve runners for each of the eight races, with County honours and places in the English Schools X-C Championships at stake. The top six Juniors, Intermediates and Seniors all qualify by right for and the top sixteen plus guests are eligible for the Schools Inter-Counties fixture after which another two will be chosen for the English Schools at Brighton in March.

The Intermediate Boys (years 10 & 11) race was first on the programme and Philip Fitzpatrick was in contention for a top six finish when he had this misfortune to put his foot in a rabbit hole, stumble and finish 9th. Multi-eventer Carl Outhwaite finished a little further down the field, separated from Philip by two ex-Harriers, Simon Pinkney and Andrew Houghton, both showing their running ability.

Next away were the Intermediate Girls, with four Harriers in the race. Amy Baines, Leah Jackson and Becka Ayre finished 8th, 10th and 17th respectively and have been invited to compete in the Inter-Counties fixture at York on Saturday next. Lianne Broadfoot finished in 28th place.

The year 7 races for boys and girls are a taster for things to come in as much as the competitors qualify for County colours but don’t get to run in the Schools X-C Championships until they are a year older. Douglas Roberts was a clear winner in the boys race, ahead of a large field which also included Tom Rennison. In the girls race, Rosie Adams and Francesca Fowden finished 4th and 12th and both made the County team, ahead of sprinter, Leanne Shaw who was 23rd.

There were 3 Harriers competing in Race 5 for Junior Boys with Keiron Watt best placed finishing 17th, Chris Andrade 26th and James Bell 38th, all ahead of ex-Harrier Josh Miers.

Jessie Roberts continued her streak with her third win in as many weeks, adding the title of County Schools Champion to her Yorkshire County title. Jessie was the first home of nine Harriers who lined-up in the Junior Girls race; next was Scarlett Gray, who also qualified for Brighton by finishing 5th. Behind them, Jo Adams, Ashleigh Robinson, Sophie Broadway and Jade Cawthray finished in 7th, 8th, 15th and 16th places and will all be competing at York for the last two places. Katie Roberts and Lindsey Johnston were outside the top sixteen but both had solid runs and finished the race. This was more than Jessica Gray could manage as she fell in the early stages, but an invitation to run at York was fair reward for her early season form.

The last two races were for Senior Girls and Senior Boys. Kim Bartram was the Club’s only runner in the Girls race and, as a seasoned multi-eventer, she admitted that cross-country racing was “not what she was best at!”. Geoff Pinkney, another ex-Harrier, finished 11th in the Boy’s race.

Northern Indoor Multi-Events and Others

In addition, there were more results to be picked-up during a busy January, from up, down and across the country. Sam Stanislaus competed in the Northern Indoor Multi-Events Championships at SportCity, Manchester Sunday 12th with mixed results. In his pentathlon Sam started with the 60m hurdles and ran a pb 9.86 seconds, then long jumped 5m31, the third discipline was the shot put and there was another pb 10m09, he then equalled his pb of 1m72 in the high jump but, after two attempts at 1m75, was forced to pull-out with an ankle injury which had happened during warm-up, so did not run the last 800m and came away empty handed. Ed Devlin competed in the Morpeth to Newcastle Half Marathon on the same day and finished 126th in a time of 1:29:30, with another 600 runners behind him. Lastly, Andrea Woodvine finished 2nd for her University team in an East Midlands X-C League race over 5K at Holme Pierrepoint, Nottingham on Sunday 19th.