Brighton & Hove Athletic City Athletic club’s senior men’s team booked a place in the National road Relay Championships by running into 22nd place in the South of England championships at the Rushmoor Arena at Aldershot.
The first 25 teams qualify for the National Championship.
It was the Phoenix club who led the Sussex challenge through the early stages of the race with Dave Carter 19th in 19:35, Josh Guilmant 26 in 19:48 and Matt Barrie 20th in 19:31 all ducking inside twenty minutes for the 6 km. course over the first three laps while Brighton & Hove’s Richard Airey finished 43rd in 20:00 Andrew Donno, who stitched, 35th in 20:23 and Dave Boyce 37th in 20:38.
The second half of the race however saw the position change as Stephen Granger-Bevan lift the Brighton & Hove team to 34th in 20:20 on lap four, just two places behind Phoenix’s Gary Thayre 22:13, who had already run in the Phoenix M40 team.
Josh Painter moved up to 30th place on the penultimate leg in 20:14 while Dan Stepney retained his placing in 21:06 and over the final circuit Chris Thompson made up eight places, clocking 19:32 to finish 22nd in a total time of 2:01:07 while James Miles 21:04 lifted the Phoenix team to 31st place in 2:03:17.
It was Matt Barrie (pictured) from Phoenix who chalked up the fastest time by a Sussex runner clocking 19:31 just one second faster than Chris Thomson although Sussex Veteran’s cross country champion Keith Newton running for the winning time in the M40 race actually clocked 19:20 when chalking up the fastest lap of the day for that event.
The Brighton & Hove M50 team picked up the bonze medals in their championships with Nigel Gates running 20:03 for the day’s fastest lap.
Tom Ulliott was 16th on the opening leg with 23:23, Peter Witcomb moved up to seventh with 22:54 and Rob Shannon lifted the team to third with 21:15.
The gap to leaders was too great for Nigel however and the team’s total time of 87:40 still saw them two minutes adrift of the winning South London team.
Chichester finished ninth in 95:54 while Phoenix were the only Sussex team in the M40 race placing 24th in 92:54.
The Arena 80 team took tenth place in the Senior women’s race with Gemma Sharp clocking 14:35 to finish 22nd on the opening leg.
Vicki Boyle, although only running eight seconds faster lifted the team nine places for Julie Briggs to make another four places on lap three in 13:49.
Emma Rollings lost one place on the final circuit clocking 15:00.
The highest placed Sussex team; apart from the Brighton & Hove City Over 50 squad was the Brighton & Hove City Under 13s who finished a splendid seventh.
Ian Crowe-Wright finished 15th on the first leg in 11:26 and Jake Stevenson dropped to 17th in 12:26 before Michael Stevenson put them back to 15th on the third leg.
A fine run from Liam Hurley (pictured) over the final circuit not only saw him move up eight places but his lap time of 10:25 was the second fastest of the day.
The Crawley Under 15 Girls team of Abbie Ashbee-Simmonds, Amelia Scott and Beth Kidger finished in eighth place while both the Brighton & Hove City Under 15 and Under 17 teams finished in 17th place.
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