Two weekends worth of results this time. A very hectic time for our cross country runners with many of the major championships yet to come both for club, school, county and possibly country. Some choices have to be made with races having to be selected with a mind on getting to the major finals as fresh and strong as possible. It bears testimony to the increasing depth of talent in the club that whilst securing team medals for the seasons overall performances in u13 girls, u15 girls and u15 boys our south of England champions Nicole Ainsworth (u13g) and Josie Czura (u15g) didn’t feature in the individual standings, neither did Lachlan Wellington u15 boys southern silver medallist. To win team medals without having to rely on these outstanding youngsters says a lot about the quality of the squads.
HOWEVER it isn’t our cross country runners that steal the limelight but our throwers yet again with Serena Vincent winning the national u15g shot putt title and Gaia Osborne winning bronze in u17 w shot putt just a few hours later. It goes without saying just how proud we all are these talented athletes. And without always winning medals some excellent indoor performances from all ages from u11 Maya Kendall testing the waters in her first u13 competitions to Claudia Cubbage winning her age group masters title with a vault of 2.60m. Club ladies captain, Sam Bickley-Vaile whilst having just broken into the vets ranks is still setting p.bs. These are the results as I’ve gleaned them, but as always let me know if I’ve missed any performances.
Schools inter-counties 6th February, Bexhill Down, Sussex.
Several of our young athletes helped Hampshire schools to some excellent results at the South East schools championships.
Junior girls (school year 8 and 9).
Saffron Moore 5th, Nicole Ainsworth 7th, Charlotte Bullard 12th, (Sussex), Bo Sansom 48th, Mia Billins 80th. Hampshire had to settle for silver medal position on the day despite having equal number of points as the winners, Sussex.
Junior boys (school year 8 and 9).
Josh Goldfinch 45th and Callum Crook 58th. (Hampshire finished outside the medals in 4th place).
Intermediate girls (school year 10 and 11).
Josie Czura 1st, Elizabeth Hedley 18th, Anya Pigden 51st. Hampshire comfortably took the team gold.
Intermediate boys (school year 10 and 11).
Lachlan Wellington 1st, Jacob O’Hara 10th, Steven Cross 79th. Like the junior girls the intermediate boys finished on the same number of points as the winning team, Berkshire, but had to settle for 2nd team place.
Senior girls (years 12 and 13) Kayleigh Johns was our sole representative in the Hampshire team coming home in 43rd place. (Hampshire team 2nd).
Windsor, Slough, Eton and Hounslow A.C. Winter Series 7th February.
60m sen w Sam Bickley-Vaile 8.26
60m hu sen w Sam Bickley-Vaile 9.79
60m u20m Tom Miller 7.56
60m hu u20m Tom Miller 8.32
Vault London, Carshalton 7th Feb
William Cubbage u13b 2.03m
Chichester Priory 10k, 7th February.
This ever popular road race is always popular with our road runners.
Robert Weekes 121, Shaun Newton 172, Emma Montiel 192, Reg Ball 291, Jo Payze 495.

Hampshire Cross Country League, Dibden Purlieu 13th February.

Our u11 girls have been dominating their races but with at least 4 spending half-term skiing and some testing themselves in the u13 races this wasn’t going to happen this time, but our sole representative, Jessica Smith finished an excellent 4th.
U11 boys Tim Czura 21st, Logan Moore 23rd, Leo Mills 32nd,
U13 girls Saffron Moore 1st, Nicole Ainsworth 3rd, Ellie O’Neill 11th, Hattie Locke 23rd, Yazmin Knight 27th, Isabelle Brydon 33rd, Phoebe Carlile 47th. This was good enough to secure 1st place on the day and 3rd place in the final league table with the same number of points as second place team. This team under other circumstances would have walked away with the team prize but school competitions deprived us of some of our more consistent performers for some of the matches. As it was Saffron Moore walked away with the individual gold medal.
U13 boys. Our boys’ team have some way to go to match our u13 girls but we have started the rebuild. With most of our strongest runners away on half term holiday it was down to newcomer Lewis Shann to lead the team home in 33rd place with Louis Knight and Jenson Howard making up the scoring team. All the boys are bottom year so will be u13s next year as are many of our holidaying runners. So with luck perhaps a better year for the boys next season.
U15 girls. On the day our u15 girls secured 2nd team place, but their strength in depth meant that without our strongest runners they won the overall team prize for the season. Bo Sansom 12th, Anya Pigden 16th, Mia Billins 19th, Eleanor Purdue 25th, Katie Simister 30th, Jazmin Pennial 32nd.
U15 boys. As with all our younger teams the u15 boys secured a good team position, 3rd on the day, 2nd overall without always being able to field our strongest team. Jacob O’Hara had a silver day throughout not only finishing the race in 2nd place, and in the process securing second place for the team over the season but finished in 2nd place in the overall individual standings. Following Jacob home were Steven Cross 15th, Callum Crook 20th, Josh Goldfinch 23rd, Michael Thomas 27th.
U17s this has been a difficult age group with only two boys, Toby Roe and Keiron James running at all through the season. Similarly with the girls, Libby Hedley and Lizzy Rose were with one exception the only girls to run this season. The exception was the first match of the season when the trio of Libby, Lizzy and Bobbie Davies won the team race by a wide margin. With Libby and Lizzy both u17 next year and some excellent u15 moving up and age group perhaps this will be one of our strongest teams next year. Similarly with the boys the top year u15s are also top quality athletes so perhaps a resurgence of our fortunes here as well.
In contrast with the excellent results of our juniors and justified optimism for the future our senior fortunes have not been so good. We didn’t field one complete team in any of the senior women’s races but with Kayleigh Johns and Lauren McCarthy both u20’s perhaps we have a core of young athletes around which to build a team in future. The men in contrast have generally turned out in large numbers but the most consistent performers were our vet athletes given that in Alex Teuten, a current England international and Tom McSwayne, Matt Smith and Toby Brimecome are all excellent prospects we have a young high quality nucleus of athletes but I don’t think we have once had this quartet in the field, and fit, at the same time.
On the day Mark Campion (51st) led the team home followed by Nialls Davies 71st, Adam O’Hara 93rd, Rory Bevis 114th.
Lee Valley u13/u15 open.
60m u13g Maya Kendall 9.86
800m u13g Maya Kendall 2.56.69
Long jump u13g Maya Kendall 3.56
Shot putt u13g Maya Kendall 5.54
60 hu u15g Maddie Wilton 16.58 (with a p.b. of 10.09 I suspect there is a tale to tell here)
High jump u15g Kaitlyn Seebohm 1.30m.
Shot putt 3kg u15g Kaitlyn Seebohm 7.78m
England Athletics u15/u17/u20 Championships 13th and 14th February.
60m u20m Charlie Craddock 7.34
60m u17m Luke Young Husband 7.64, Jo Martin 7.52.
U15 60m hu Hollie Thurgood 9.41
Pole Vault u20m Tom Farres 4.60m.
Shot putt u15g Serena Vincent 12.57 and National Champion.
Shot putt u17w Gaia Osborne 13.53 and national bronze medallist.
British Masters AF Pentathlon Championships, Lee Valley 14th February.
PV Claudia Cubbage 2.60m and v40 champion.