Southern Style
HW's Senior Men posted their best team performance for almost half a century when they finished just outside the medals in the South of England Cross Country Championships at Parliament Hill Fields on Saturday.
In previous newsletters we claimed that the fifth spot achieved in 2018 was the best-ever performance, however those two legends of the Club, Bob and Dave Holt, were swift to point out that HW's Senior Men actually won the title in 1970, having finished second in 1969 and third in 1968. In 1973, they finished third once again. So huge apologies to those great teams!
1970, in particular, was a remarkable year, in which, says Dave, 'we almost won the treble: we were first in the Surrey Championships, first in the Southerns and narrowly beaten into second place in the "big one", the National Championships!'
Having finished fifth in 2018 and sixth last year, the men's squad must be hoping to repeat the pattern of fifty years ago and contend for medals in next year's Championships.
A total of 17 athletes were in action on Saturday on the 15km (9 miles) 3-lap course in this, the longest Championship Cross Country race staged in England. Leading the team home was Alex Milne (above left) who finished a fine 13th of the 1172-strong field in 49:09.
Fred Slemeck (above right) was second finisher, taking 28th place in 50:32, his highest-ever placing in the event. Ed Mallett, making his debut in the Championship, was 50th in 51:58, with Rhys Boorman (63rd in 52:44), Tom Jervis (71st in 53:09) and M40 Dimos Evangelidis (93rd in 53:55) completing the scoring team.
Final placings: Aldershot, Farnham & District AC (97 points), Tonbridge AC (150), Highgate Harriers (158). Hercules Wimbledon AC 318.
The Club had 59 runners in action across the 10 Championship races. Sadly through Illness and injury the U17 Women were short of a fourth runner to complete their team, however the trio of Ellen Weir, Georgie Clarke and Niamh Thompson all finished in the top 35. Ellen was 14th of the 153 runners in the 5km race in 20:40, with Georgie 27th in 21:02 and Niamh 32nd in 21:20.
Millie Thorpe was the first U15 Girls finisher in the 4km Championship. She was 38th of the 303 runners in 18:39 with Lulu Weisz 79th in 19:32, Georgia Winter 126th in 20:06 and Ore Adewale 179th in 21:06. The quartet finished 15th in the team contest.
William Belton and Adam Hammadi were the first HW finishers in the U15 Boys 4.5km championship. They were 149th and 156th out of 317 runners, in 17:03 and 17:08, respectively.
In the U13 Championship over 3km the scoring team of Benjy Street (74th in 12:56), Ronan McArdle (105th in 13:10), Oliver Holden (129th in 13:25) and Ibrahim Mohamed Achchi (130th in 13:26) finished in16th place out of the 36 teams. In the U13 Girls competition, also over 3km, twins Charlotte and and Sophie Conway (111th in 14:34 and 113th in 14:35 were the first home. Grace Eminson (129th in 14:46) and Ariana Shale (211th in 15:53) completed the scoring team.
Due to a series of unfortunate mishaps involving the chips used for timing, U13 Sophie Thorpe and Eloise Davies (U15) did not have their results recorded; nor did Claire Grima in the Senior Women's 8km race, in which the only other HW participants this year were Helen Davies, who was 289th out of 694 finishers in 40:02 and Suzie Slemeck, 580th in 49:04.
Henry Silverstein was 50th out of 118 runners in the Men's Under 20 8km Championship in 29:15 with Hector Revill 100th out of 206 in the U17 Men's 6km Championship in 25:32.
Inside Job
Enjoying his early season racing indoors, Charlie Eastaugh was in action again this week in the Ayo Falola Dream Mile and 3K Open meeting on Wednesday at Lee Valley, this time with in-form Jonny Cornish for company (pictured below).
Eastaugh stretched out their 3000m race when the tempo slowed, only for Cornish to take it on with around 800m to go, just missing out on the win in a big sprint finish. His time of 8:22.30 was a new PB, while Eastaugh, in third, finished in 8:23.50, a massive improvement on the PB of 8:28.44 that he set on 19 January in Cardiff.
Fabulous Freddie
It has been a great start to the season for the Club's sprinters. Following PBs for Theo Etienne and Chad Miller in the last couple of weeks it was U17 Freddie Arkell's turn to shine. Last year’s U15 National Indoor and Outdoor 200m Champion, Freddie posted 22.93 over his favoured distance, along with a PB of 7.06 in the 60m at the U13-U17 London Indoor Games at Lee Valley last weekend.
U13 Javon Blake, who only began competing for the Club in January, lowered his 60m PB to 8.41 and, competing in his first 200m indoors, clocked 28.86; while there was a PB in the 200m of 23.75 for Efe Peters. There were PBs, too, in the 60m for U17s Marcus Gayle (7.73) and Missy Cooper (8.36), and in the long jump for pentathlete Darcey O'Shea (4.48).
Results
Saturday 25 January: SEAA Cross Country Championships, Parliament Hill. Full results
Saturday 25–Sunday 26 January: London U13-U17 Games, Lee Valley. Full results