The Bexhill cross country course at Bexhill Down, which is renowned for the muddy underfoot conditions had another trick up its sleeve for the second of this season’s Sussex Cross-country League matches on Saturday, It produced probably the windiest event in the history of the League as virtually non stop 40 mph+ winds swept across the course.
Without doubt the real heroes were not the athletes, who could arrive do their race and then get back into shelter, but Terry Skelton and Pete Standen and their team of course markers and marshals who were marking the course from eight in the morning, then acted as Marshalls or officials and then cleared the course after the last runner had finished nearly eight hours after they had started their duties.
Worthing’s Emma Macready was one of just three winners from the first fixture at Goodwood last month to repeat their victories and she brushed aside the wind and muddy underfoot conditions to romp away with the senior women’s race in 19:17.
She finished well clear of Arena 80’s Fiona Clark who clocked 19:57 with another Worthing runner Leah Harris taking third place in 20:04 and she was also the first U20 athlete to finish.
Club mate Luke Ellard was again an impressive winner of the U13 race clocking 11:15 ahead of Isaac Elam (Hastings) who just managed to hold off Will Carey (Lewes) clocking 11:24 to 11:25 while Ben Collins (Chichester) was the third athlete to repeat his victory but it was by no means as convincing as his Goodwood win when he put twenty seconds between himself and the second runner.
Although he kept his nose in front all the way in the U15 boy’s race just five seconds separated him from George Pool (Hastings) in 15:20 with Tom Tarragano (Brighton & Hove) sixth in the opening race improving to third place in 15:38.
Bethany, the latest and probably the last of the of the talented Cook triathletes from Bodyworks, looks like displaying the same talent over the country as had her elder sisters, won the U13 girls race in in 12:05 ahead of Brighton & Hove’s Lois Dooley 12:10 and Maya Tamnarine (Hastings) who recorded 12:15.
Almi Nerurkar (Brighton Phoenix), who had missed the first race, was quite happy to keep company with Ellen Crombie (Hastings) for the early part of the U15 girl’s race but she eventually pulled clear in the closing stages to win in 14:23 to 14:26 with Poppy Mercer (Bodyworks) taking third spot in 14:59.
The closest battle of the afternoon came in the U17 boys race where Eastbourne’s Daniel Stidder and Brighton & Hove’s Brody Denholm renewed their track rivalry over 1500 metres in the summer to produce a nail biting finish.
Stidder had led for most of the race but Denholm made a long run for home in the finishing straight and was still in the lead ten metres from home.
He then slid through the finishing line and his feet crossed the line first but it was Stidder’s body, which is what counts that gave him the verdict although both were timed at 17:48.
Their battle had taken them well clear of the rest of the field and George Crocker (Crawley) finished nearly one minute adrift in 18:44.
In the afternoon’s final event, the senior men saw Howard Bristow, fourth in opening race, and Brighton & Hove Club mate Max Dumbrell, eighth in the opening race, forcing the pace with Crawley’s Paul Navesey, fifth in the first race, forcing the pace over the first of the three laps.
Navesey had been dropped by the half-way mark and over the third of the three laps Dumbrell broke clear for an impressive first League victory in 26:37 with Bristow clocking 26:47 in second place and Chichester’s James Baker, the King of the Sussex League, coming through strongly to overhaul Navesey to take third place in 27:15 to 27:24.
Results are now posted and any errors should be reported to Keith May