Fourteen athletes from the senior men’s team turned up to brave the conditions at Parliament Hill for the Southern Cross Country Championships, the traditional home of cross country. The nine mile course had been duly prepared by the recent deluge of rain and nicely churned up by the preceding races, ensuring that norm of energy zapping mud was very much the order of the day.
It was unfortunately too much for Jonny Crickmore’s spikes which became the first casualty of the day, and special thanks must go to him for travelling down from Sheffield even if it didn’t have the ending he desired. It was however a strong team performance with the team finishing 11th out of 110 teams and the first Sussex team home.
The team were led home with very strong performances from Kev Rojas 33rd, Dimos Evangelidis 37th, Howard Bristow 42nd and Andy Donno 63rd in what is always a very demanding and high standard race. The final two of the six man scoring team dipping just inside the top 200 were Dave Boyce and Zared Hale in 195th and 196th respectively, with Dave determined to stay ahead in their home straight battle, both finishing on the same time. Morris Tarragano 221st, Graham Godden 249th, Chris Malinson 585th, Shaun Billing 675th, Phil Stevenson 692nd, and Andy Mitchelson 912th completed the final finishing twelve. Commiserations also go to Ashley Humphreys who had to pull out during the race with an injury niggle.
Well done also to Ian Crowe-Wright led the team home in 41st place in the U20 race, supported by Charlie Noakes in 84th and brother Harvey in 102nd.
Many thanks to all the above athletes who took part. It’s great to see a good number of our athletes supporting this event and seeing the team do well in what is a truly challenging course. Next stop National Cross Country 22nd February.