The final races in this season’s Sussex Cross-country League were held in damp and muddy conditions at the Hickstead Showground on Saturday and as always, for the final races of the seasons numbers were well down.
Getting the worst of the underfoot conditions the senior men did see the Brighton Phoenix Club, who have struggled to get teams out this season, put up a much improved showing.
A quartet of Ross Shelton (Brighton Phoenix), who is returning from injury, club mate Josh Guilmant and Brighton & Hove’s Max Dumbrell and Howard Bristow broke away from the main body of the one hundred plus runners from the start with Skelton, showing that he is on the right road back to form after injury by notching up an impressive victory in 30:00 over his club mate who shared second place with Dumbrell, on 30:19 with Bristow leading home the Veterans in fourth place in 30:27.
Neither Phoenix nor Brighton & Hove, the County team champions, were at full strength and although Phoenix took the team event on the day by a few points Brighton & Hove held on to their League title with 289 points to 476 for Lewes and Haywards Heath on 722.
Paul Navesey (Crawley) took the individual title with 7 points to Dumbrell’s 8 and “King of the League”, James Baker (Chichester) in third place with 12 points.
The Under 20 race is held in conjunction and James Martin from Lewes, who finished 26th overall, was the first U20 athlete to finish and also took the League title.
In the senior women’s race Worthing’s Emma Macready, as she has done in all four races, strode across the line a comfortable winner in 19:52 to confirm her league title with club mate Leah Harris doing likewise in the U20 age group clocking 20:11.
Izzy Coomber (Haywards Heath) was third overall in 20:25 eleven seconds ahead of Martha Coyle who was second in the U20 race both on the day and in the battle for the League title.
Chichester took the team title with 224 points to 239 for Lewes and 289 for Worthing.
The U17 runners ran with the seniors and Karina Bennett (Chichester) was first home in 10th place ahead of fellow Chichester athlete Grace Wills but the places were reversed for the League title.
Daniel Stidder (Eastbourne) notched up an impressive victory over Crawley’s George Crocker in 18:50 to 19:31 and they also filled the first two places in the League.
Joe Smith from Crawley, who was the only Sussex winner at the School’s Inter-counties last weekend, sprung a surprise on Ben Collins from Chichester winning the U15 race by three seconds but Collins had already confirmed the League title by winning the first three races this season.
Isaac Elam (Hastings) by winning the U13 race from Will Carey (Lewes) on Saturday and this duplicated the placings for the League title.
The U15 girl’s title and race went to Ellen Crombie (Hastings) with Almi Nerurkar (Phoenix) second and so it was in the U13 race where Maya Ramnarine (Hastings) beat Lisa Dooley (Brighton & Hove).
Download results here.