On Saturday the Greater Manchester County X-Country Championships took place in Leigh. The course was a mixture of football pitches, tarmac, disused railway, muddy twisty sections in the woods and golf course running, all packed in to a flat fast course. Weather conditions were good and with less rain in the last week there wasn't the huge puddles of water that are often on this Leigh course. As well as County medals, selection for next March's inter-counties x-country was up for grabs, meaning there was a quality turnout even if the depth of runners was not the same as league x-country races.
In the U13 Boys 3km race Lenny Alves (Sale) set a fast early pace stringing the field out. Thomas Daly was always in close contention, as the lead group chased the early leader, with Thomas finishing fast to pick up the bronze medal. With Ethan O'Brien and Mathew Aron not far behind in 11th and 13th Trafford picked up the bronze team medals. The rest of Trafford's u13 boys packed well behind the top three, with Ned Farncombe a close 15th, Daniel White 22nd and the fast finishing Joe Bowden 29th.
In the U15 Girls it was a dominant display by Sale's girls as they picked up Gold, Silver and Bronze team medals, but Trafford's team were the next best and looking strong all the way to the finish Sarah Smith lead the team finishing 11th. Sarah was backed up by Beth Stanley 19th and Genny Jackson 22nd. In the Boys u15 race it was a fast 4km race that saw Adrian White take an early lead and move away for a 19 second win. Ben Gardner was in the group behind battling for a medal with his strength in the second half of the race taking him clear to finish 2nd. Ralphie Rome was 11th last year in the u13 boys race, but as one of the youngest in the u15 boys race he showed how much he has improved moving away from a group to claim 4th place meaning he secures his first Greater Manchester vest and giving the team the victory on the day. Another athlete showing great improvement is Arlo Mander Tullius (9th) who narrowly missed out on making the Greater Manchester Team with a big sprint finish and close behind him was Thomas Aron (11th).
In the U17 Men's race it was a dominant display by the Trafford runners with 7 in the top 15 giving the Team the Gold and Silver medals. It was a steady start on the first lap of the 5km course that meant there was a large group early on. It was Finlay Goddard (Sale) who gradually built the pace up during the second lap whittling the leaders down until with a kilometer to go he just had Pio Aron and Jay Hutchinson following, but when they got on the tarmac section with 800m to go he made a decisive break. Pio chased and was pipped in the sprint finish by Jay. Only 4 seconds down was Tio Austin (5th) with Fin Dobson Emmas (6th) just behind and there was only 15 seconds covering the top 6 runners. In a quality field Tim Ye was 8th, Evan Lewis 12th, Evan Horwell 15th and Oscar Gascoine 24th.
The U17 Womens race was run jointly with the u20 womens race again over the 5km distance. The race spread out early on with Sara Clough always close to the leaders, Sara eventually finishing 2nd u20 and 4th overall. Just back from Birmingham uni Issy Pearson had a great run to come through to pick up 3rd place in the u20 race and in the u17 race the team finished 3rd behind Salford with Rachel Bowden 8th, Isobel Thomas 13th and newcomer Rafaella Ingleby-Castleton 16th.
In the Men's U20 race Trafford were once again battling for medals this time it was Durham university student Will Parker in the top 4 eventually picking up a bronze medal and leading the Trafford team to victory. Josh Watson, the youngest in the field claimed another Greater Manchester vest in 5th place, Joe Daly in 7th (after slipping several times in his trail shoes) finishing off the A team. Dan Partington set off at a fast pace but was rewarded as he hung on to finish 9th, just ahead of Luke Carrington in 11th and with several runners ahead of him too old to qualify for the Greater Manchester U20 team Dan secured the final automatic place on the GM U20 Mens team.
In the senior womens race Amelia Williams was in a close battle with 2 others for 2nd place most of the race with the places only being decided in the last mile, Amelia claiming her first Greater Manchester medal with the bronze. Sue Exon was Trafford's only other athlete in the race finishing a very strong 33rd place.
In the Senior Men's race Xavier O'Hare left it to the very last minute to claim his bronze medal using his track speed over the last 100m to again claim bronze. He was backed up by John Howe 26th and Jacob Fletcher 35th, all running well out of the 64 finishers.
Full Results: GMAA XC Champs Provisional Results - niftyEntries.com
