The National Cross Country Championships for 2017 took place at Wollaton Park, Nottingham on Saturday 25 February. The “National” is regarded as the biggest race of the season in that it is open to entry by any athlete wishing to race hard over typical British cross country course i.e. hills & mud. Wollaton Park is no stranger to the National and it provides a testing course in good surroundings.
The outstanding performances by Stoke athletes were by our top seniors Kate Holt, who placed 10th over the 8K senior women’s course, and Alex Brecker, who placed 11th over the 10K senior men’s course respectively. The course was very testing for both athletes made more so by the strange decision by the course setters to take both races off the finishing line run by all the other races and run them on a parallel course which took them through a deep bog. There was plenty of mud without the addition of this obstacle, but true to form both Kate and Alex were not phased by the course and coped well with the course and the conditions. Congratulations to both on their excellent performances.
Best individual performances in the U17 races were by Casey Maddox, 37th in the U17 men and Lauren Gregory 66th in the U17 women’s races. The U15 boys race saw the best performance go to the in form Gianni Loska finishing in 28th place who combined with Jake Barker 138, Sebastian Rowe 158, and Joshua Wright 254 to return our highest team position of the day in 15th.
In total 36 club athletes tested themselves on the day, it would be fair to say that all of them carried home a fair amount of the Wollaton Park mud, congratulations to all those who took part and we wish you ongoing success in the final few races of the 2016/2017 cross country season.
Full results can be found on the E.C.C.A website and on our Facebook page at facebook.com/stokeac/posts.