English National Cross Country Championships 2009

Parliament Hill, London, Feb 21^st

Tickner is national champion again! Well done!

The Harrier’s Frank Tickner continued his domination of the UK cross country scene with a fine victory at the national cross-country championships on Saturday. This year these were held at Parliament Hill, next to Hampstead Heath in London and the runners were greeted with spring like weather; the ground though reflected recent rain and snow, providing muddy going for most of the men’s 12 km race. Unlike his victory of 2 years ago, Frank’s win was not an easy one, although for the spectators he provided a great dual with, the eventual second placed, Steve Vernon. In the end Frank’s strength told and he now goes go on to hopefully gain selection for the world cross country championships which are being held at the end of March in Amman, Jordan. (BBC TV coverage)

The glorious weather was not matched by the London traffic and the Harrier’s next best runner on the day, Andrew Hennessy, failed to make the start as a result of his car being clamped. He finally began the race around 7 minutes late and then proceeded to overtake many of the 1500 runners in the field – based on previous year’s form he would certainly have finished in the top 50 if he had started with everyone else. Eliot Haimes was somewhat disappointed with his run, finishing 145^th, but he is returning from time out with injury and will soon get back to form. Another one returning from injury, Jon Gilling, finished 448^th, thereby giving Andrew Deamer the chance to finally beat him. Andrew ran well to finish in 390^th place. Carl also ran well for a great placing. Unfortunately 2 of the Harriers’ other runners, Simon & John had to drop out with injury during the race so the team didn’t feature in the 6 to score team competition.

Katrina Prior finished 354^th out of 550 finishers in the ladies race while her son Luke performed very creditably in coming 212^th out of 356 in the U13 boys. Luke promises well for the future as he is actually just aged 11 and will have 2 more years to compete in this age group. George Harris was the other Harrier in action, running well to finish 97^th out of nearly 400 finishers in the U15 boy’s race.

Good luck to all the juniors selected to run for the County Schools team in the SW Schools Championships this on Saturday 28^th at Taunton. Next and final team outing for the season is Saturday March 14^th at Carmarthen where we look to win a number of age groups in the Gwent League. Please contact Paul or Annette/Geoff for a place on the minibus(es). Watch this space for news of the end of season XC celebration event!