On what turned out to be a warm dry pleasant January afternoon the third Manchester league x-country took place in the beautiful Tatton Park.

The U11 boys and girls race was first off. Thomas Daly came through the field to finish 5th just getting ahead of Matthew Aron. Those two were backed up by Patrick Widdop, the fast finishing Jack Walsh and strong runs from Daniel White, Tom Alderson and Sam Cowles. Special mention to Samantha Talib competing in her first x-country race and Trafford's first U11 girl finisher. Overall the boys team are still leading with both Thomas Daly and Matthew Aron in the fight for the top 3 individuals.

In the U13 race Adrian White continued his great form with his third win out of 3 races. Ben Gardner was close to the lead group finishing a strong fifth. A good run from Joe Thomas, with Thomas Aron and Joe Cowles close behind, saw the team finish 2nd. Overall there are now only 3 points covering the top 5 teams.

Trafford's U13 girls are all first year U13 and they continue to improve. Megan Boyer led the team finishing in 13th place backed up by Anna Thomas and Beth Stanley with Ciara Carruthers and Rosie Lowther close behind, placing the team in 9th overall.

In the U15 age group the boys have all but secured the team title with a third team victory out of three races. Once again the fast finishing Jay Hutchinson managed to sprint past his team mate Pio Aron in the last 50m as they finished 2nd and 3rd in the race and look likely to finish in the top three overall at the end of the season. Close behind and continuing to improve, Fin Dobson Emmas and Tim Ye finished fifth and seventh. With 11 runners in total the boys B team were 5th team overall and have moved up to fourth team in the series. Evan Lewis and Tio Austin ran well to finish the B team but there were promising runs from Rowan Leeming and Benjy Cavanagh running their first ever x-country at this level.

In the girls U15 race Ursula Bailey had her best run of the season finishing 10th. Showing how close the competition is between the Trafford girls, Isobel Thomas was 15th and Rachel Bowden 17th giving the team fourth overall. Similar to the boys there were 9 Trafford athletes in total and close behind were Martha McCormack, Daisy Atkiss, Ava Bygrave and Sophie Bowman.

The U17 men's race saw Freddie Meredith run away from the field with the most dominate run of the day, winning by 44 seconds. Behind him there was a great run from Joe Deighton who even after loosing a spike shoe early in the race managed his best race this winter finishing fourth. Behind Joe, Jack Haworth was fifth and his consistent winter means Jack has moved up to fourth overall in this winters Manchester league series. Trafford won the team race but showing amazing strength in depth Trafford's B, C and D team were third, fourth and fifth. A lot of the U17 men are improving every race an example being Ed Robinson who was an impressive 3 minutes faster to finish 22nd.

The U17 men are not having all the glory as Trafford U17 Women once again won the team race. Ava Clough, Freya Griffiths and Sara Clough are becoming a formidable team as they finished 1st, 2nd and 5th in the latest race. Ava looking very strong in the last mile moved 30 seconds clear of Freya who was a further 30 seconds clear of third. Overall the team are winning the series with Freya leading the individual series.

In the senior women's race it was good to see Sarah Hudak having a run out and looking back to form with a comfortable 18th place. It was a strong field of over 350 runners and 73 complete teams but running well to back Sarah up Mel Monks finished 51st, Liz Ellyard 63rd and Zoe Storr 72nd meaning the team finished 9th.

In the Senior Men's race one of the youngest runners in the race Louie McCormack had a great run, revelling in the fast conditions he finished 15th overall out of 447 runners. Another youngster Harry Sinclair was 25th and the team was finished with a mixture of youth and experience by Jeff Prest, Matt Sutton, Ned Silvey and Tony Davenport again 9th team overall.

Full results can be seen here:-

https://www.race-results.co.uk/results/2023/maccl223.htm

Thank you to parents and coaches for sending in photos plus some great pictures from Jon Kearns' site. Click here to see more on Jon's Facebook page.