Madeleine Turner lifted the overall best performance in the Girl’s Under 13 Derbyshire Cross Country Mini League at the final match in this year’s three race series, held in freezing conditions last Saturday at Moorways Sports Village, Derby. For the second match in a row she ran a commanding race to finish first, forty seconds ahead of Derby’s Alice Lincoln with Buxton runner Erin Colebrook placing third. With a third place in the first fixture and two victories in the second and this race, it meant that Madeleine was presented with the best overall U13 Girl’s performance in the Derby club room at the end of the morning’s races. This was a well deserved accolade for this promising young athlete.
In the U13 team race AVEAC, finished on a score of 16 points to take second spot behind a good packing Derby team on 11 points. Madeleine was well supported by Amelia Whittaker who finished sixth and Ellie Ursell who came home in ninth place.
Ten athletes from AVEAC travelled the short distance to take part in the fixture and as well as Madeleine’s excellent run there were several other good performances by the young runners. Isla Douglas ran determinedly in the Girl’s Under 11 race to finish third and four seconds behind her Katherine Turner put in a gutsy display as well to take the fourth spot. Ninth place was filled by Summer Biggs to complete the scoring team while Aimee Brackenbury as a non-scorer did well to finish the course in eleventh place.
In the Under 11 Boy’s race the Sangster brothers, Lucas and Jasper were our two representatives. Lucas finished seventh with Jasper crossing the line in thirteenth place. Our only other competitor at the fixture was the ever reliable Eleanor Rigby who finished fourth in the Girl’s Under 15 race.
South of England Indoor Combined Events Championships, Lee Valley Indoor Centre, London – 17th/18th December
The club’s two Senior multi-event athletes, Scott Ram and Alice Robinson traveled to London at the weekend to take part in the Southern Combined Events Championships with both coming away with personal best scores.
In the Men’s Heptathlon, Scott scored 4718 points to finish fifth overall, adding 180 points to his previous best set at last season’s England Indoor Championships in Sheffield when he finished eighth. In this meeting he finished fifth overall behind winner Elliot Thompson, the son of Daley Thompson, the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Decathlon Champion; Eliot scored 5421 points. Scott returned personal bests in three of the seven Heptathlon events with a time of 7.28 in the 60 metres, 2:44:32 in the 1000 metres and the Pole Vault where he cleared 3.60m.
Alice finished fifth as well in the Women’s Pentathlon with a score of 2226 points. She put a consistent set of performances together in all five events and was rewarded with a new best ever throw of 9.74m in the Shot.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Words – Joe McColgan
Cross Country Photos – Sarah Turner