7 out of 10 county championship titles for WSEH athletes at Berkshire County Cross Country Championships

At the annual Berkshire County Cross Country Championships held in Cookham on Sunday 19^th December 2021, the club’s cross-country runners won every individual title from U13 Girls and U13 Boys up to U20 Women and U20 Men (apart from the U15 Girl’s race). Club representatives were also 2^nd in the Senior Women’s and U15 Girls’ races and 3^rd in the Senior Men’s event. As well as winning the county titles, WSEH athletes placed 2^nd in the U15 Girls, U17 Men’s and U20 Men’s and Women’s races, came 3^rd in the U13 Boys, U13 Girls and U15 Girl’s events and took the top 4 places in the U17 Women’s race. All 7 winners are part of Shireen Higgins’ middle distance group at WSEH.

This was the 1^st time that the Copas farm venue had been used for a county championship although some socially-distanced, wave-based races had been held at the venue during the previous cross-country season. In bright sunshine, the 1^st race of the day was the Senior Men’s 10 km consisting of 1 small and 3 large laps around undulating farmland and grassy verges. The race was run at the same time as the U20 Men’s 1 small and 2 large lap 7km event. Daniel Brookling was the best of the Senior Men taking 3^rd place behind winner Sam Hart of Newbury AC, followed by Hugo Donovan in 12^th and Phil Branston in 31^st (12^th in the Veterans over 35 category and 1^st V55). With 6 to score, the club was unfortunately not able to finish a team.

Sam Hodgson took a fine 1^st place in the U20 Men’s race and with Will Goddard 2^nd and Ross van Heerde 4^th, they easily won the team competition. Other WSEH athletes in the race were Ben Rowe, Luke Hynes, Jack Campbell and Jordi Evans-Rodriguez in 8^th, 9^th, 10^th and 11^th places respectively.

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Meg Ormond took a distant 2^nd place to Kirsty Walker in the Senior Women’s 10km race with Izzy Rainer in 6^th. In the accompanying U20 Women’s 7km event Jasmine Young led from the start to take a deserved win followed by Katie Clutterbuck in 2^nd.

In the U13 Boys’ race, Finn McKay, running his 1^st cross country race for the club, took a resounding win and with James Farley 3^rd and George Hilliar 5^th, they also won the team competition. Aaron Shiel was not far behind in 9^th, Ben Young was 22^nd and Euan Totays 29^th. Zoe Allen won the U13 Girls’ race, closely followed by Tara Ferguson who took 3^rd place. Lola Williamson was the 3^rd scorer in the winning team in 9th place. Zara Davey who was only just old enough to compete, was 11^th and Sofia Sabbah 16^th.

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Ben Dewar continued the club’s success with an emphatic win in the U15 Boys’ race with Callum Welch 5^th, James McSharry 13^th and Sohan Nath 16^th. After a close-fought battle with winner Carys Westcott from Reading AC, Ella Davey was a close 2^nd in the U15 Girls’ race backed up by Abigail Farley in 4^th and Aashni Manek 16^th which gave them the 3^rd team position. In addition, Ana Passos was 20^th, Sorcha Lally 24^th and Maizie Tearle 25^th.

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Luke Birdseye continued the club’s winning ways in the U17 Men’s race with Frank McGrath 2^nd and Joshua Mingoia in 4^th after just losing out on the sprint for 3^rd. This gave them a clear team victory. In addition, George Thomas was 7^th and Julian Abass 9^th. WSEH’s U17 Women took the 1^st 4 places in their race with Freya Ruffels and Jemima Ridley battling it out for the win until Freya broke away in the last 800m of the race to take 1st place. Rachel Clutterbuck completed the medallists in 3^rd which sealed their team victory. Jess Hatch was not far behind in 4th and Keshni Manek also ran an excellent race coming in 7^th.

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What a fantastic day for the club and in addition to the successes on the day, everyone coming in the top 8 in their race has a chance to represent Berkshire County in the Inter Counties Championships in Loughborough on Saturday 12 March 2022.

Full results are available here.