Seven Up as Girls on Top
A huge 23 minute victory margin for the U14 girls was the FVO highlight of the day at the British Relay Championships in South Wales, where club teams collected no fewer than seven medals on an excellent day.
The young girls are the basis of the team that dominated the Mini classes a couple of years ago, although Sophie Edward has replaced Matthew Owen from that team, as teams at this level are single-gender.
Esme Finch had the opening leg, and was first back into the changeover in 18.27, 31 seconds up on a Scottish combi team from MOR, ESOC and INT. The select team mispunched on the first control of the second leg, and Sophie held the team together with a split of 20.54, and a relative lead now of more than nine minutes.
Enter individual champion Hannah Inman, and exit any chance of a catch, as Hannah went out hard, ran hard and came in hard in a time of 17.09 for an all-through lead and a margin so extreme they could have run a 4th leg and still won.
The Elite men were the defending champions, and when Tommy Rollins brought the team home 2nd from the first leg, 28 seconds behind OD, another good race was in prospect. Chris Smithard got in front on the middle leg and was back for the changeover holding a lead of just over a minute, and although Peter Molloy was caught up within sight of the finish by EUOC, it was a close run thing, with an eventual margin for the students of just 12 seconds.
The W60 team also had a close battle, with BOK this time, and Heather Fellbaum and Vicky Thornton set up Alison Cunningham for a run at the title, and 2.24 to make up. Alison nearly made it too, with a gap of just nine seconds in the end and a silver medal.
The 40+ teams were two-thirds over 50 this year, and Roger Goddard and Paul Hammond worked hard in the men's event to keep in touch with SN. Will Hensman took back nearly a minute on the closing leg, but the team wasn't quite able to get up, and had to settle for silver.
The highlight for the W40 team was a stunning second leg from Rona Molloy of 24.58 which brough the team right back into contention after Jennifer Leonard's 32.45 on the opener. BOK came steaming through on the last leg, but Janine Inman had more than enough in reserve to run in for bronze.
There are bronze medals too in the junior classes, where Lucas Baikie, Fraser Cheyne and Alex Hunt profited from the M18 course leaders having an ineligible runner to win silverware, and on the Junior Ad-Hoc course, Matthew Inman and James Edward were consoled for having been left out of the U18 race for want of a third runner with the bronze alongside Ethan Baikie.