With two national relays events and the Midlands Championships set for Berry Hill Park this winter the testing parkland course saw its first fixture this week when schools from across Nottinghamshire descended on the town.
Over the next few months the country’s best athletes will visit Mansfield as the reputation for cross country events continues to grow.
The first major is on Saturday when the British Masters Cross Country Relays takes place.
Attracting competi
tors from as far as Belfast, Wales and Folkestone there are two start times for races across seven different age groups with the action starting at 12.30pm. Spectators are welcome and entry is free.
The premier event of the year returns to Mansfield on Saturday, 1st November when thousands of runners descend on the park for the prestigious English Cross Country Relays.
This event attracts Olympians and World Championship level athletes and organisers will be hoping for a repeat of last year’s blue skies and sunshine.
The sun was out in abundance last Saturday when the first fixture of three Nottinghamshire Schools Cross Country League events took place and encouraged some promising early season form.
Mansfield Harriers were well represented with their youngsters securing all but one of the victory places and taking over half of the top five spots across the eight different races.
Taking top spots were two sibling pairings with twins Sam and Molly Johnson, running for Southwell’s Minster School, taking both year 7 races and Joseph Whitaker School’s Hannah and Tom Wragg coming home first in the year 10/11 Girls and Year 8/9 Boys respectively.
Nicole Goulding and Alex Rieley cleaned up in the Year 5/6 races with Ewan Millar defeating Richie Talbot (second) and Tom O’Mara (fourth) for victory in the longest race of the day – the Year 10/11 Boys.
Clare Norris, Ella Shirley and Abigail D’Aguair took second, third and fourth in the Year 7 Girls whilst Rachel Brandham, Claire Talbot and Laura Brown did likewise in the Year 10/11 Girls.
Bailey Wardle and George King came home second and fifth respectively in the Year 7 Boys with Ben Hardy fourth in the Year 5/6 and David Wilkinson fifth in Year 8/9 completing the boys’ top spots.
The Year 8/9 Girls just missed out on a clean sweep with Chevelle Baxter (second) followed home by Demi-Jade Jakymelen (third), Charlotte Bellingham (fourth) and Hannah Hardy (fifth).
Thirteen Harriers took to the roads of Clumber Park for the annual Clumber Park 10K Road Race with Rob Smith returning home first in 13th place and in a time of 37:31.
The full article contains 449 words and appears in Ashfield Chad newspaper.
