A course record for Eastbourne’s Eleanor Strevens plus good racing weather and record entries highlighted the afternoon when the Sussex cross-country relays were held on the Downs at Goodwood on Saturday.
More than two hundred teams contested the afternoon’s event totalling over 700 runners and no less than nine different clubs won titles, but only Arena 80 (3), Brighton & Hove (3) and Crawley (2) won more than one title.
The senior events are usually held at the end of the afternoon and so it was with the senior men’s race topping the day’s racing and Patrick Hough put the Lewes team at the head of the field at the end of the first of the four legs, some thirty metres ahead of Brighton & Hove’s Kevin Moore.
It was not that long however before James Turner (Brighton & Hove) overtook Lewes’ Josh Burgess to take the lead and hand over with a sixty metre lead.
The third leg saw Stephen Ferroni, running more like his old self, put the Brighton & Hove team into a winning lead actually clocking the days fastest lap in 12:07s and the final lap saw William Cork stretch the lead to bring his team home in 49:30s with Lewes taking second place in 51:07s and Crawley, minus their top two runners, were well adrift in third place in in 52:25s.
Hough was second fastest lap in 12:10s and Moore third fastest in 12:17s.
In the three leg senior women’s race Arena 80 team led from start to finish despite including two W45 runners.
Masie Trafford took the first leg and recorded the fastest lap time in14:37s with Caroline Hoyte and Julie Briggs in 14:45s and 14:43s respectively bringing the team comfortably home in 44:05s ahead of Haywards Heath in 47:31s and they were closely followed by Chichester in 47:47:53s.
Second fastest lap time was the home club’s Alice Wright in 14:54s and third fastest Emma Navesey (Haywards Heath) in 15:00s. Briggs and Hoyte’s time were first and second in the W45 results.
Brighton Phoenix was the U17 women’s relay in 48:26s to Brighton & Hove’s 50:51s with Alex Richer running the fastest lap in 14:48s.
Crawley took the Men’s U17 race in 41:56s ahead of Bodyworks 42:10 and Hastings 42:21s with Ethan Fincham (Team Synergy) running the fastest leg in 12:55s.
Bodyworks, won the U15 girl’s race in 31:09s ahead of Chichester in 31:54 and Brighton & Hove 32:42s with Bethany Cook (Bodyworks) running the fastest lap in 9:39s while Hastings took the U15 boy’s title in 29:05s. Brighton & Hove were second in 29:27s Worthing third in 29:44s and Carlos Nieto (Hastings) ran the fastest lap in 9:23s.
The championships started with the U13 girl’s event and the only record of the day came on the first leg of this race when Eleanor Strevens put her team into a winning lead in 10.04s and they eventually won in 33:16s ahead of Brighton & Hove “A” and “B” teams who clocked 34:28s and 35:07s respectively.
Chichester won the boy’s race in 30:58s from Lewes 31:04s and Brighton & Hove 31:22s with Charlie Ferris (Horsham) running the fastest lap in 9:46s.
In the Masters races Crawley won the W35 race and Arena 80 both the W45 and W55 events while Haywards Heath took the M40 race and Brighton & Hove the M50 and M60 events.
These relays were preceded by Under 11 races and results of these will be posted late today.
If you have any queries or want more information regarding this post, please Email Reg Hook.