Category: Cross Country

The 2017 Berkshire Cross Country Championships were hosted by Maidenhead Athletic Club and took place at Braywick on 7th January 2017.  Results are available in the attached file.

This event has finished, and both individual and team results are now available. Many thanks to WSEH A.C. for hosting the event.

This season’s Championships were held on Hungerford Common for the first time, with thanks going to all at Newbury A.C the host Club.
The weather conditions leading up to the event were fine but the overnight rain continued well in to the day to give the course a slippery surface.
After a slight mishap in the Men’s race where they ended up running an extra 1000m everything else went to plan, apologies for that.
222 athletes took part in the 8 races, 12 less than last season.
Thanks go to The Town & Manor of Hungerford for allowing us to use the land, and to Hungerford Rugby Club and everyone at the Triangle Field for the use of their excellent Clubhouse and facilities. Also to The John O’Gaunt School for
allowing us to use the School car park and M&M Medical Services for the First Aid Cover, and finally thank you to all the Berkshire Officials for doing a great job as usual. 

Berkshire came away from this season’s Championships with two team and two Individual medals.

Grace Goddard was always in the leading pack in the under 15 Girls race and was duly rewarded with the Silver medal. Morven Goodrum followed up her fine run at the English National with another top ten finish in 7th. With Hope Goddard 13th, and Elena Carey 54th, the team finished in second place.

Harry Digby produced a very fine run to finish 3rd in the under 13 Boys race, and with some good backing from Maxwell Cooper in 12th place, Sammy Hart 16th and Shaun Hudson 67th, the team finished runners-up.

There were also top ten finishes for Scott Halsted and Ben Priddle in the Under 20 Men’s race, being placed 7th and 8th respectively. Berkshire were just one runner short of finishing a team in both of the under 20 age group races; all the other team results are listed below.

     Under 13 Girls ……. 15th / 41    Under 13 Boys ….. 2nd / 40
     Under 15 Girls ……. 2nd / 40    Under 15 Boys …… 4th / 40
     Under 17 Women.. 13th / 37    Under 17 Men ….. 10th / 38
     Senior Women …… 26th / 32    Senior Men ………. 16th / 32
     Senior Men 9 Man team were 6th.

I would like to thank every athlete that ran for the County at the event, and also a big thank you to all the coaches across the County who gave me such good support with the teams both beforehand, and on the day.

Andy Tuttle 
Berkshire Cross Country Team Manager

The weather was poor, cold with heavy rain showers most of the day. The course was flooded in places, including the final finish but the track held up well.

Many thanks to all those, especially Bracknell AC, who were involved in the organisation, preparation and running the event on the day.

Many thanks to all the members of Bracknell AC who helped stage these championships. Also thank you to the Crown Estate for use of Swinley Forest, to PreMed for providing first aid and to all the course marshalls, ,timekeepers, judges, starter, referee, results officials and the refreshment team who gave freely of their time to make the day a success.

Jonathan Davies became the first ever Berkshire athlete to win consecutive titles at the UK Inter Counties Cross Country Championships, held in Cofton Park, Birmingham. Jonathan followed up last season’s success in the under 17’s race with a very well judged win in his first attempt in the under 20 Men’s.

Matthew Rawlings continued his fine season to finish runner up in the under 13 Boys, and with some excellent packing from Ben Hooper in 9th place, James Daly 26th and Sammy Hart 29th, the boys team also took the runner up spot.

The under 15 Girls team were crowned Champions, again this was down to some fantastic team work that saw twin sisters Hope and Grace Goddard cross the line together in 6th & 7th place’s, while Felicity Johnson and Siannah Rayment both ran well in 20th and 21st places respectively.

The Senior Men also showed how some good teamwork can pay off as they were placed 2nd behind Lancashire in the nine Men team positions.

It was also very rewarding to see Berkshire finish a team in all of the ten races, for which I would like to thank each and every one of you who took part. Thanks also go to the coaches and parents that helped out with the teams and supported the athletes.

Team results
Under 13 Girls – 4th, Under 13 Boys – 2nd,
Under 15 Girls – 1st, Under 15 Boys – 27th,
Under 17 Women – 33rd, Under 17 Men – 4th,
Under 20 Women – 7th, Under 20 Men – 11th,
Senior Women – 29th, Senior Men – 15th

Report by Andy Tuttle (Team Manager)