If Grace Baker was expecting anything like a proper Cross-country course for the European Championships at Hyeres on the French Riviera on Sunday then she would have been disappointed.
The course over what appeared to be an almost dusty race course with a few man made humps and a couple of logs bore no resemblance to her muddy and hilly home course at Bexhill Down.
However the Sussex girl did the country proud as she finished 44th out of a field of 80 finishers and helped the Great Britain team to overall victory at these championships.
Silver for Bristow
There were more medals for Sussex runners and Clubs in the “South of England Masters” cross-country championships which were held in conjunction with the Inter-counties at Biggleswade on Saturday.
Two individual medals and three team bronzes meant it was a pretty good afternoon’s racing for Sussex at Shuttleworth Old Warden Park.
Competing in the M40 race Brighton & Hove’s Howard Bristow was in great form running into second place, behind Chris Greenwood from Invicta, and he led his team into third place in the M40-49 age group team event with Graham Gooden, who finished sixth in the M45 group and Adam Tribe who placed 12th in the same event.
Caroline Wood also led the Arena 80 team to bronze medals in the W50-59 event by placing 4th in the M50 race, with Brighton & Hove’s Gail Nerurkar 11th, while Jenny Hughes, third in the W55 race and Fiona Jamie 17th in the same event completing the scoring three.
There was also a third team spot for the Crawley M60-69 team with Wally Hill placing 10th in the M60 and Dave Beattie finishing 4th in the M65 plus Jeremy Carmichael in 29th place.
Horsham Joggers just missed the medals by placing fourth in the M50-59 group with Dean Angel and Steve Wigmore finishing 17th and 18th in the M50 group and Pete O’Connell 6th in the M55 group, two places ahead of Crawley’s Bob Creed.
In the M70 age group Andrew Haig (Brighton Phoenix) came home with a fine bronze medal.