Hail the Champion!

Emily Smith wins the English schools Junior cross country race

Emily Smith won the Junior (u15s) cross-country race at Heaton Park, Manchester on Saturday March 20^th. Emily reports that she was in about 20^th position half way through the race when the other runners all started to come back to her and she managed to beat the runner up – Amy Griffiths of Leicester – by just 1 second. Emily’s time for the 3km course was 10.02 and there were 339 runners competing.

This follows on from Emily’s 2^nd place at the South-west Schools Championship last month, and is her first national title. Emily will now go on to run for English Schools team competing at the Home international match at Truro on Saturday March 27^th.

Emily follows in the footsteps of the Harrier’s Team GB Frank Tickner who won the English Schools Inter’s (u17) match back in 2000. Emily has been training with the Harrier’s Monday group for the last 4 years and all the hard work of those sessions and the various sports training she does with her school have now paid off.

It looks like it was a tough and demanding course – the English Schools website shows a muddy hill being tackled by the Junior boys. The Junior Boys team was 3^rd overall, and the aggregate Boys winners for Countys the size of Somerset (based on school population) was Somerset.

We await confirmation of some of the results as it appears some incorrect names appear on the provisional listing.

WELL DONE TO ALL THAT COMPETED!