National Treasures

A fantastic day at the National Cross Country Championships on Parliament Hill for the U20 Women, especially, as Ellen Weir won a brilliant individual silver medal and the team took bronze. Notably the U13 Boys finished 7th, the U17 Women 10th, and the Senior Men equalled the 8th place they achieved in 2018, the last time the Championships were held in London, with first HW man home, Dan Cliffe, finishing 33rd…

Every three years the National Cross Country Championships circus rolls into town, decorating Parliament Hill with tents and flags. Thousands of runners and supporters pour off trains and tubes trudging up beyond the athletics track and bandstand, searching for their Club's colours in the temporary village, excited to take on the challenge of 'that' hill against a London skyline which has steadily reshaped itself since the Championships first took place here in the 1950s.

Parliament Hill on Nationals day is always special, but this year it was extra special, as for the first time in decades the Club saw not only an individual medal, but a team medal, too, as eighteen year old Ellen Weir clinched a fabulous silver in the U20 Women's race, and a bronze in the team competition, along with Albane Fery and Niamh Thompson.

The last winner in the Nationals was Club Chairman Dave Clarke, who took the third of his titles in 1988 (he was also runner up four times). And for the last team medals you need to go back to 1974, when the Senior Men took bronze. However the best ever team performance was in 1970, when the Senior Men were runners up. Fittingly both Dave Clarke and Mike Fuller, who was part of that 1970 team, along with the legendary Holt brothers, were on Parliament Hill last Saturday cheering on the teams.

'Alex Millard (of Invicta East Kent AC), who won the U20 Women's race was a clear favourite, being two years older, and she was 4th at the BUCS (University Championships) a few weeks earlier – but I thought I had a chance of a medal after winning in Belgium', says Ellen, whose confidence and form has been building with every recent race. Knowing the other possible medal contenders, and having beaten them in some races, and been beaten by them in others, there was little to fear and all to play for.

‘I was in the top group on the first lap, then we split into a group of three', she recalls. 'On the second hill, Alex broke away and I separated myself from Megan Harris in third and hung on for the rest of the long lap. I really thought she would come past me because I could hear people screaming, at her, ‘’you’re closing the gap!’’.

She needn't have worried as she came home comfortably in second, while behind her Albane Fery in 29th and Niamh Thompson in 72nd, were about to write their own page in the Hercules history books. All cross country runners know the mantra 'every place counts', and as Niamh sprinted the last twenty metres, gaining one more place, she clinched the bronze medals for the team.

Over the decades HW representation in the U20 age group has been spartan, so it was a treat to see five talented young women out on the course laying down a marker for the future of female distance running in the Club.

As for Ellen, in only her second 6000m race, is she now feeling comfortable over this distance? The jury may still be out on that one, as she says, ‘It still feels very long!’

Right: Club Chairman, Dave Clarke, the last Hercules athlete to win a medal at the Championships, on his way to taking his third National title in Newark in 1988. Photograph by Andrew Gatt.

Inside Story

So what is it like to take part in your first National Championships, and at 'the home of cross country', Parliament Hill, too. Who better to ask than George Mallett, key member of the distance team, who is currently studying for a Sports Journalism Masters Degree at St Mary’s University.

This is his account of the day...

The National always will be the premier cross event in the calendar and few venues are more iconic than Parliament Hill. It’s a race that many of us will have had in the diary since the year before, and arriving on Hampstead Heath, seeing the hundreds of different banners doesn’t do much to aid the nerves.

We all deal with it differently. I like a few solo strides, Oli Carrington wants to have his routine done a good 20 minutes before the start and Fred will always find his way to the front seconds before the off.

Knowing you are going to be a decent way down the field, however, does take off some of the pressure, even though Ellen Weir and the Junior Women did their best to apply it by winning individual silver and team bronze.

A good ten minutes before the gun you see the assembled masses make their way to the start, over 3000 on the entry list and a line about 150 metres wide.

The National used to have a pen system so clubs found their pre-allocated spot and organised their team from fastest down. That’s now been abandoned, so it’s a free-for-all for places, meaning those that line up at the front at the start are often somewhere near the back come the finish. Choosing your spot is difficult, but myself and brother Ed settled on one about four rows back towards the middle. With Mahamed Mahamed and Emile Cairess (who finished first and second) a few rows forward we figured it wasn't a bad shout, and did our best to encourage an ever-modest Jonny Cornish further to the front (he’s run the eighth quickest 10k in the country this year!)

Minutes turn to seconds and applause ripples through the field. A few cries of encouragement and the gun goes, the field moving as one homogenous mass, one mad dash towards the rows of crowd lining Parliament Hill. I could say you notice it all, but you’re spending the whole time trying to avoid spiking the man in front or attempting to stay vertical as someone barges you from behind. I took a nice elbow to the chin as thanks for my caution.

Up front, a few publicity-shy souls are pegging their way to be the first to crest the hill, and all around others are doing the same to get themselves out of trouble. I do neither and within a few hundred metres of the race it has come to a near halt as the course tightens and the runners prepare to slide their way down the other side.

Slowly but surely the race starts to resemble one, even if the mud seems to fell people one by one. A mud-covered body, 15mm spikes and thousands of almost blind runners doesn’t make a good combination.

Peppered throughout the field the yellow and red of Hercules: Dan Cliffe has made his customary way into the leading 50, having finished the last four editions all inside the top 40. Fred, ill the entire week before, is not far behind. The rest of us follow.

The Parliament Hill course can be described as nothing other than a war of attrition and over the one small and two big laps the positions change throughout. Many drop out, but to the credit of many a Herc runner who was either facing illness or injury, none did.

We really did have it drilled into us that every place counted. Despite over 360 clubs represented, Herc athletes still clustered. I found myself alongside Andrew Penney and slowly we caught up with Jonny, all the while having Richard McDowell just over 15 seconds ahead.

Behind, Oli, another who had spent the week ill, was fighting it out with Jack Bibbings and Rhys Boorman, all separated by less than 10 seconds. Ed, who had faced stomach issues which we later found to be resulting from a mouldy bottle (yum!) was struggling on behind.

No other race has you sprinting your way to 121st, 122nd and 123rd respectively but that’s how Penney, Jonny and myself found ourselves as we turned the corner for home, each having a private yellow and red battle, which seemed to drag us away from the Belgrave and Bracknell vests behind. We all finished on the exact same time, with Penney first and the chip system placing me supposedly in front of Jonny (though that wasn’t how I remembered it).

With Dan having moved up to 33rd, Fred in a personal best 58th and McDowell in 107th it was enough to put us into 8th in the team competition, another solid result in a good season.

Oli, Jack and Rhys coming in in 193rd, 195th and 202nd meant that in the nine-man competition Herc finished sixth, just one point behind Highgate. Jack especially deserves credit, having competed for the first time in 12 years in this season’s Surrey League and capping it off with a top 200 finish in the National.

Our focus will now move to the Southern 12-Stage Road Relays, an event where we hope to challenge for a medal.

Hercules Results: 33 Dan Cliffe, 58 Fred Slemeck, 107 Richard McDowell, 121 Andrew Penney, 122 George Mallett, 123 Jonny Cornish, 193 Oli Carrington, 195 Jack Bibbings, 202 Rhys Boorman, 248 Matt Sharp, 290 Ed Mallett, 321 Jackson Creegan, 363 Joe Clark, 468 Jamie Bannister, 639 Austin Hall, 1194 Rob Tuer, 1378 Andrew Davies, 1430 Simon Woodley, 1431 Max Dew, 1466 Felix Allen, 1509 Victor Ray, 1515 Richard Evans, 1564 Brian Lynch, 1570 Simon Woodington, 1612 Thomas Cheetham, 1761 Gordon Lilly, 1979 Tom Morris.

And more...


Well done to the U13 Boys team who were seventh of 41 teams, led home by the very in-form Thomas Whorton in 38th, with Harry Allen 52nd, Sam Dyson 53rd and Zach Elliott 108th.

Abbie Grey ((76th) was first home for the U17 Women who finished tenth, with Eloise Davies (88th), Lulu Weisz (109th) and Millie Thorpe (138th), completing the team.


Full results