Caroline Hoyte from the Arena 80 club was the only runner to retain a title at the Sussex Masters cross-country championships at a dreary and damp Lancing Manor on Saturday.
Hoyte is the most prodigious Sussex cross-country runner having won more Sussex senior titles than any other athlete. Although she is now in the W45 age group, as last year, she won the Overall race at Lancing finishing more than one minute clear of W35 winner Alissa Ellis from Hailsham.
Hoyte clocked 27:30s for her W.45 victory with Hailsham’s Sue Fry taking second place in 28:27s and Dani Tarleton (Arena 80) recording 29:04s in third place.
Hailsham’s Ellis was timed at 28:34s when winning the W35 title ahead of Crawley’s Fiona Clark in 29:01s who took second place by one second from Amelia Brown (Saints and Sinners).
Karen Divall (Lewes) took the W55 title in 32:12s from Clare Aqualina (Arena 80), 33:36, and Helen Dean (Chichester) 33:52s.
Arena 80 won all three team titles, the W35 from Hailsham and Brighton & Hove, the W45 from Crawley and Hailsham and the W55 from their “B” team and Chichester.
The men’s events seemed to suffer more from absentees than the women and the three potential medallists in the M40 championship failed to reach the starting line.
This however did enable Dave Carter (Phoenix), who finished seventh in this race last year to turn in one of his best runs since joining the Masters age groups to record an impressive victory in 37:59s ahead of Matt Bristow (Brighton & Hove), who is the brother of reigning champion Howard and finished 11th last year,clocking 38:22s with fellow Brighton & Hove runner Louis Taub in third place in 38:54s.
Carter led his Brighton Phoenix team to a clear team victory with 27 points to 66 points for Lewes and 69 for Haywards Heath in third team spot.
Brighton & Hove’s Graham Godden and Crawley’s Adrian Haines produced the closest battle of the afternoon with the Brighton & Hove runner coming home just six seconds clear to take the M50 title in 31:52s to 31:58s with Morris Tarragano (Brighton & Hove), whose son Tomer finished second in the Sussex Schools senior race on Wednesday, taking the bronze medal in 32:48s.
The M60 race saw another Phoenix runner, Paul Whelpton, produce a half-minute victory over Frank Ward (Brighton & Hove) clocking 35:27s to 36:09s with Richard Miles (Chichester) taking third place in 37:11s.
Brighton & Hove won both team titles scoring 12 points to Crawley’s 27 and Lewes’s 23 in the M50 race and 15 points to Crawley’s 25 and 27 for Brighton Phoenix in the M60 race.
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