WADAC athletes at Inter Counties Cross Country Championships

Winchester & District Athletic Club (WADAC) athletes were selected to run for the Hampshire Team at the UK Inter Counties Cross Country Championships. The venue for this year’s Championships was the superb setting of Prestwold Hall in Loughborough. The expected wet weather stayed away but the course was still a quagmire with many of the athletes looking exhausted at the end of their races.
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nThe Senior Mens race was over the challenging distance of 12k and WADAC’s representative was George King and he had a fine strong run to finish Hampshire’s 4th scorer in 56th position. Hampshire had the overall winner of the race with Southampton’s talented Mahamed Mahamed winning in style by almost 50 seconds in a field of 284 finishers/ The Hampshire team just missed out on team medals and were 4th out of the 31 completing teams.
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nThe Under 15 boys race was ran over 4.5k and Winchester’s Doug Scally was picked for the Hampshire and ran positively and was rewarded with 143rd out of the 303 finishers. Hampshire were 5th in a competitive team event from the 42 county teams.
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nBen Chesterfield capped a brilliant cross country season with selection to the Hampshire Inter County team. He will have gained great confidence from this experience, he was 221st on this occasion out of the 309 competing the course. Hampshire found the going fairly tough and they were 11th team.
nWADAC’S Grace Mann represented the Under 17 womens team at Loughborough and ran splendidly to finish in the top 100 in 93rd position in the 5k race. The Hampshire team were 9th team out of the 39 counties closing in.
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nThe best number of athletes for WADAC was in the Under 15 girls where they had 3 athletes in the 4k race. Sasha Tydeman had another excellent run and was the first Hampshire runner home in 31st showing how much improvement she has made this season after her fine run in the National Cross Country event. Isabella Beck was 116th having a strong run in the gruelling conditions. Team-mate Aisling Dunne was 138th out of the 304 finishers. The Hampshire team were 14th county of the 42nd teams finishing.
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nRose Chesterfield continues to get better and better and was Hampshire first runner home in the under 13 girls 3k race in an outstanding 28th position of the 302 finishing athletes. Hampshire were 9th placed team in the team event.