Results and Photos from the ESAA Cross Country Championships

    

These were held on Saturday 14th March at Sefton Park Liverpool.

Four top 10 performances from our athletes, great day. Grace 4th, Holly W 6th, Will 8th and Hope 10th.
 

Report from Andy Carter:

It looks as though Saturday's English Schools might be one of the last races for a while but fortunately it went ahead and for Vale Royal it was another successful day.
We understood that a top 10 finish would mean an International vest would be awarded - we got 4 top 10 finishers but unfortunately the SIAB has been cancelled so those 4 will not be able to compete in the Home International.
What is disappointing though is that there was no recognition of their achievement - one would have thought that they could still have been awarded England kit or at the very least an England vest !

Vale Royal had 24 athletes chosen to race on Saturday - unfortunately 5 dropped out due to illness or injury but 19 turned out.
The first race was the Inter Girls where we had 5 athletes, we got 2 top 10 finishers in a very strong field with Grace and Holly finishing brilliant 4th and 6th places respectively and they were well backed up by Izzie in 38th, Ellie B 147th and Ellie H 181st .
This helped Cheshire take 3rd place in the team event - all 5 of our girls were first year Intermediates which makes the achievement more remarkable and augurs well for next year.

In the Junior Boys Robbie was 2nd Cheshire in85th, Zach was 245th and Josh 262nd.
In the Junior Girls Cheshire got 2 girls in the top 10 - Carys Roberts was 9th with Hope finishing an excellent 10th, Alice was 3rd Cheshire girl in 73rd and Darcie 314th.
In the Inter Boys - Will Ashfield had a great run to finish 8th - unfortunately it was carnage on the first corner where Dylan was pushed over and badly spiked, Jake lost 40 or 50 places - but that is the problem with the inside pen draw and a 90 degree turn after a few hundred metres with a field of well over 300 !
However Jake worked really hard to get into the top 20 before being out kicked at the end to finish 2nd Cheshire runner home in an impressive 32nd !

In the Senior Girls Holly led the Cheshire team in 28th and Ellie 3rd Cheshire in 196th - unfortunately Cheshire did not finish a team.
Finally in the Senior Boys Aaron finished 2nd Cheshire in 116th, Sam was 3rd Cheshire in 166th and Ed 5th in 195th - but he lost a shoe early on and was spiked on his heal so did really well to finish the race.

Overall this brought to an end a great winter season for the club with some fine individual and team performances over country and in the relays.


Click HERE for full results.
Click HERE for photos by Rob Brown.