Athletes burst out of the Christmas haze to put in strong performances at the Sussex Cross Country Champs last weekend.
Nearly 500 runners completed the 12 races across the event held at Little Common, Bexhill.
With the weather cold and crisp, condition underfoot were typical for cross country.
Brighton & Hove AC made it a hat trick of top positions in the under 11 girls’ race with Ada Greenaway 1st, Victoria Ridley 2nd and Eleanor Poate 3rd.
HYAC’s Benji Pocock took the win in the under 11 boys ahead of Laurie Fox (Brighton & Hove) and Riley Ayre (Worthing).
Gold in the under 13 girls’ went to Skye Widdows (Brighton & Hove) who was 38 seconds ahead of Ella Bartholomew (Lewes) 13.14 and Darcie Wickenden (Crawley) 13.29.
Together with Florence Matten (7th) and Sophia Fitzgerald (8th), Skye won the team gold for Brighton & Hove (16 points). HYAC were 2nd (31 points) and Phoenix 3rd (36 points).
Harry Chapman was the clear winner of the under 13 boys’ contest followed by Crawley athletes Finley Nottage in 2nd and Xander Wagjiani 3rd. With their 3rd Crawley athlete (Tristan Kerr) placing 6th, it was no surprising they scooped team gold (11 points).
Silver went to Brighton & Hove on 25 points and Phoenix on 54.
Looking comfortable from start to finish, under 15 HYAC Isabella Buchanan crossed the line first in 15.10 in front of Hastings’ Elizabeth Hutchinson (15.23) in 2nd and HYAC’s Scarlet Dixon (16.11) in 3rd.
Florence Tewkesbury finished in 11th place to complete the winning HYAC team. Crawley AC were 2nd (19) and Chichester 3rd (32).
There was a second hat trick of placings in the under 15 boys where Eastbourne continued their dominance over the age group.
Byron Roberts was 1st (13.46), George Armstrong-Smith 2nd (13.55) and Fin Lumber-Fry 3rd (13.59).
Collectively, this was the best team score of the day. Chichester were 2nd on 28 points and Brighton & Hove 3rd on 32.
Next up were the under 17 women where a pack of 4 runners broke off at the front early on and tracked each other for a lot of the 5K course.
Chichester’s Molly Smithers was victorious (20.19) ahead of Ava James (Lewes) 20.23 and Daisy Connor (Eastbourne) 20.28.
Eastbourne won the team title with Daisy, Freda Pearce in 4th and Katherine Brown in 9th. Lewes then scored 19 points and Phoenix 37.
Finlay Goodman (Brighton & Hove) displayed his usual talent in winning the under 17 men’s race beating a Team Bodyworks duo of Finley Blythe 2nd and Lucas Gorrill 3rd.
Brighton & Hove A team were both team gold winners (with Arun Khursheed in 7th and Thomas Barnett in 8th) and silver medallists. Crawley AC were 3rd.
The under 20 men start their race at the same time as the senior men but split off to complete 8K instead of 10k.
The dominant winner was Henry Yelling (Brighton & Hove) – 35 seconds ahead of Ravi Clark (Phoenix) in 2nd and Charlie Ferris (Brighton & Hove) 3rd. With Jonathan Beckett placing 5th overall, Brighton & Hove took team gold.
In the senior men’s competition, Brighton & Hove’s Matt Grindrod came out on top in 34.05 followed by team mate Andrew Green (34.32) then Rhys Boorman (Hastings) in 34.34.
Six athletes make up the teams in this age category and with Matt and Andrew above as well as Kieran Barnes finishing 4th, Zared Arasaretnam-Hale 6th , Callum Lorimer 10th and James Dicks 12th, Brighton & Hove were the winners with 35 points. Next in line were Phoenix on 84 and Eastbourne on 216.
Also starting together were the under 20 women (completing 6k) and the senior women (8k).
Chichester’s under 20 Anya Barrett crossed the line first in 24.37 with Amelia Cox (Crawley) in 2nd in 24.53 and Ellie McLean (Eastbourne) 3rd in 25.24.
Senior women gold went to Tonbridge AC’s Verity Hopkins in 31.08, comfortably ahead of silver Milly Dickinson (Phoenix) in 31.22 and Imogen Matthews (Chichester) in 31.33.
With four scoring a total of 33, Phoenix were team winners Amy Harris (7), Flora Davis (11) and Suzy Rushforth (13) joining Milly.
Brighton & Hove scored 43 for 2nd and Lewes 3rd on 60.
Thanks to HYAC for taking the lead on organising the event together with all the Sussex officials.
The top 4 from each race were automatically selected to represent Sussex at the UKA Inter Counties in March.