Border League Cross Country

BORDER LEAGUE X-C at GUILDFORD – RACE REPORT

Sunday saw 21 of our young athletes travel to (an exceedingly muddy!) Guildford to represent the club in the Border League, against other athletics clubs and schools from Berkshire, Surrey & Hampshire. It was another great performance with representation across the U9, U11 and U13 age groups. For some it was their first race and for many more their first experience of true cross-country conditions. Tough getting around in trainers and even tougher in cases where both trainers came off in the squelching mud of Stoke Park!

Congratulations to each and every one of our runners.

First off were the U9 boys running a lap of 1300m. In a field of 85 runners Hunor Dani finished in an excellent 20th position with Nelson Taylor and Fraser Cargill, both a full year younger than most other young runners, well-placed middle of the pack.

Next up over the slightly longer distance of 1500m was the same girls’ quartet from last match in Lightwater. A great team performance finishing 6th overall of the 14 clubs led in by Sabrina Coppola Johansen in an impressive 11th place, with Lottie Paul (20th) and Rachel Riedlinger (30th) in a big field of 91 runners. The club are proud of Poppy Scott who showed real character true spirit of sportsmanship, sacrificing her race on the day to stay alongside another runner who was in distress and help her get around and complete the course.

Immediately following the girl’s race, the U11 boys’ team put in a great show and had their best result to date. The individual performance of the day has to be Jake Meyburgh’s 3rd place, running 8 minutes flat over 2000m in a field of 112 runners. With real strength in depth and numbers, Walton AC finished 4th overall of 14 clubs with Jack Wright (18th), Charlie Bedford (27th), Josh Johnston (28th) and Samuel Shepherd (30th) all finishing comfortably in the top third of the field. The team also saw good performances from Tom Stevenson, Joseph Sandri Durban, Seb Clark, Mason Pollard-Day, Ethan Luiz and Alex Grantham – most who had previously run at Lightwater in the previous fixture. A strong team result, something to build on for the final race next month.

On this occasion the club did not field full teams for the U13s, but this takes nothing away from what was a very strong run in the conditions by Evie Bedford to finish 5th of 46 runners in an excellent 11:18 mins for the 2600m course.

Finally, in the boys’ race, over the slightly longer 3000m, both Harry Currie and Lucas Pollock-Williams saw further improvement from their last outing to finish 11th (in 11:48 mins) and 24th position (12:27 mins) respectively of a field of 48 runners.

  • The next Border League will be at Reigate on Sunday 1st March 2020.

Walton AC Academy & Satellite team
Photos: K Scott