Brighton University’s Nicola Taylor had a great run in the BUCS cross-country championships at Gloucester on Saturday.
With Grace Baker, from Hastings, injured and unable to face the starter it was down to the Crowborough athlete, who runs for Tonbridge, to fly the Sussex flag and this high class field she finished an excellent 13th.
There were not many Sussex athletes on show in either the men’s or women’s race but Brighton & Hove’s Emma Dixon, who is finding it difficult to fit in her training with her Animal Husbandry Course at the University of London should feel reasonably happy with her 51st place.
Brighton & Hove club mate Ian Crowe-Wright, who is mainly concentrating on Indoor racing this winter led the Sussex challenge in the men’s race finishing in a fine 21st place but he appears to be the only Sussex runner in the top one hundred.
Chichester Priory 10k.
It was also pretty tough for Sussex runners in a good class field at the Chichester 10k road race on Sunday morning.
In what was virtually a triple dead heat the first three runners all cracked the 30 minute barrier with Northern Ireland’s Paul Pollock clocking 29:42 while both Luke Caldwell (Dorking) and Scott Overall (Blackheath) taking second and third place sharing 29:43.
Dr Chris Zablocki, who is studying Medicine at Chichester University this year and has got involved with the local club, finished in seventh place in 30:26.
Despite the strong South West wind that battered the runners Stephen Ferroni (Brighton & Hove) improved his best 10k road time by finishing 11th in 31:09 and was the first U20 runner to finish.
Club mate Matt Bristow also ran faster than before clocking 31:31 and he was the first V40 runner to finish.
Another Pb went to Crawley’s James Westlake who finished 16th in 31:51 while fellow Crawley runner Paul Navesey missed his Pb by just one second when placing 18th in 32:00 and Daryl Hards (Brighton Phoenix) placed 20th in 32:16.
In the women’s race Worthing’s Emma Macready and Rebecca Moore finished fourth and fifth respectively in 35:03 and 35:33.
Archie Davis is Flying.
Following his cracking 800m indoor run at Lee Valley on Wednesday Archie Davis (Brighton Phoenix) flew over to Ireland and notched up another personal best over 1500 indoors at the Glo Heath competition in Athlone on Sunday.
Although still only 17 Davis was a close second to Irishman Joe Warne (Doheny) in 3:48.63 just five metres adrift of the winner.
On Wednesday he carved more than one second off his previous best when placing third in the Senior A race at the BMC Lee Valley Open event.
The race had been won by club mate Spencer Thomas in 1:49.52 while Davis clocked 1:49.74 which was also over a second faster than Craig Winrow’s previous Indoor best by a British 17 year old in the early 1990s.
Fellow Club mate and U20 athlete Finley Bigg finished third in the “C” race with a Pb of 1:53.19.