This weekend will see our Sussex youngsters travel to Leeds for the English Schools Cross-country Championships.
School teams from 46 counties in England will gather at the Temple Newsam event, which is one of the biggest in the cross country calendar.
The six Sussex teams are made up of athletes selected from their performances in the county over the last few months.
Bethany Cook is one of these and she will be hoping to match her success of last year where she was second in the junior girls’ category. It will be tough as she has moved up an age group to Inter girls, as have team mates Poppy Palmer-Malins and Eloise Key.
Joining Bethany, Poppy and Eloise are the likes of Lois Dooley and Milly Dickinson, who were part of the bronze medal winning team in the same age group last year. In form Maggie King and Olivia Toms make up this team.
Tomer Tarragano also ran last year placing 22nd. He has had a brilliant cross country season so far and will be aiming to better last year as he competes as a second year Senior boy. With athletes: George Pool, Leo Brewer, Ethan Fincham, Leo Stallard, Hugo Hewitt, Luke Burgess and Jacob Cann, the hope is they can match last year’s 3rd place.
It will be the first time Eleanor Strevens has been to the English Schools. Strevens, who missed last week’s National Inter Counties at Loughbourgh, will be competing as a junior girl alongside Amelia Cox, Daisy Burton, Eadie Yelling, Sophie Nurse, Sophie Packham, Freya Hinds and Madeleine Badruzaman.
Eadie's twin brother, Henry Yelling, has also been selected and is one of the stronger junior boys. Together with Nicholas Hollan-Ellidge and Ben Connolly, they produced some impressive performances at the Sussex Schools competition back in January. Their team is made up of Lukas Harber, Will Matthews and three first year in the age group boys: Miles Waterworth, Charlie Ferris and Alexander Riley.
Alex Richer, who ran brilliantly last weekend at the National Inter Counties, and Olivia McDonald are two of the front runners coming in to the senior girls’ team. Both competed last year and are joined by Ellie Farrow, Alice Cox-Rustbridge, Darja Knotkova-Hanley, Saoirse McGuinness, Harmony Cooper and Jasmine Mamoany.
Isaac Elam took the Sussex Schools Inter Boys title with ease. He will be aiming to capitalise on this together with Tom James, Callum Stone, Adam Dray, James Gardam, Ashley Williams, Dillan Quiric and Atticus Mohapi-Dobouny.
Getting to the English Schools XC Champs is an amazing achievement and we wish all our teams the best of luck.
If you have any queries or want more information regarding this post, please Email Kate Matthews.