English National Cross Country Championships 2023
The English National XC Championships took place on 25th Feb at a new location at Bolesworth Castle near Chester. This event is arguably the biggest cross country race of the season where the best athletes from all over the country come together to do battle!
Twenty ECH athletes took to the fairly flat course and with the dry weather the last few weeks there wasn’t much mud to contest with either, so fast running was definitely on the cards.
Our under 15 boys were first to take to the course over 4km. Only 40 seconds split our 3 ECH athletes with Marshall Fleet 133rd, Alfie Manser 145th and Joe Taylor 198th. Imogen McBurnie was our sole representative in the under 13 girls race having a good run to finish in 229th place over the 3km distance. Harri-Ann Fleet was also our only ECH runner in the under 15 girls race over 4km coming home in a solid 243rd position.
The Junior Women were next racing over 6km and Emilia Platt had another storming run to finish 13th overall with teammate Aliesha Smith in 88th both in the first year of this age group, followed by Megan Lewis in 112th bringing the team home in 12th place overall.
Hayley Simpson was next up in the Senior Women’s event over 8km finishing well in 250th place out of 773 finishers with a time of 38.01. Michael Obi went in the penultimate race of day in the junior men’s race over 10km and worked hard to finish a creditable 124th position.
The final event of the day were the senior men over a whopping 11.5k distance. The team finished a solid 36th position out of 99 finishing teams. Joe Hudak and Gavin Browne has a great battle with Joe just pipping Gavin to the post by just 1 second finishing 176th and 179th respectively. There were other great performances from Liam Browne 372nd, Gareth Raven 388th, Darren Smith 599th, Jacob Taylor 749th, James Hartshorne 872nd, George Lewis 1066th, Derek Hughes 1307th and Thomas Clarke 1368th.
Well done to all and thanks to all ECH coaches, parents etc. for their support on the day.
Photo – Emilia Platt (middle – number 2363) in the lead pack in the Junior Women’s race