Bea Wood successfully defended her Wiltshire cross country age group title at the county championships in Bath, writes John Ruskin.
The City of Salisbury club dominated the girls’ under 17’s race with Wood romping home in first place, timed at 16min 24sec for the 4k distance, Sophie Nicholls taking second and Isabelle Wolsey third.
Their coach, club stalwart Dave Amey said:
“This follows a sequence of remarkable results – but I’m not claiming the credit. With Bea, Sophie and many others over the years, I’ve looked after them from when they first joined the club at the age of 11 and it’s their work that is paying off. My simple philosophy is to try and give young athletes the right kind of training programmes for each part of the season: if they listen, learn and do their best that’s all I ask. Most will steadily improve if they really want to give it a go.”
For good measure, their outstanding performance at the front of the race made sure that Wiltshire easily won the under 17’s tri-county contest against Somerset and Avon.
The under 11’s girls team took second place in their event with Sophie Hayakawa, Sophie Wood and Lilli Clements-Champion 5th, 10th and 17th; the boys were third with Jacob Earle, Art Mitchell and Freddie Bosworth 9th, 14th and 28th. The under 13 girls came third with Olivia Glover 13th, Daisy Sears 17th and Harriet Boardman 29th.
Michael Beckett was tenth in the men’s race, Andy Holme 32nd, and Matt Bosworth 48th, while for the women Grace Cousins was 20th, Jane Holme 21st and Charlotte Routledge was 23rd.
In the Salisbury Plain marathon near Tidworth, new signing Jenny Hartley finished second female and seventh overall with a promising debut of 3hours 52min 54sec.
Phil Perry was eighth and first in his age group with 3.53.12, then came Angus Paton 4.39.45, Di Cross 5.29.38 and Jane Knight 5.29.39
In the half marathon, coach Mark Glanville finished a good fifth in 1.36.34, followed by Mike White 1.38.44, Stuart Robertson 1.53.12 and Nicky Yevko 1.57.05
At the festive Christchurch 10k, a Christmas pudding was the reward for speedy finishers Mike Brewster in 38.11, Sarah Brewster 45.57 and Aly Sloane 48.23