Tonbridge Athletic Club’s under 20 women (photo) captured the bronze medals from their event, at the National Cross Country Championships, on Saturday, held at Mansfield. It was the first time that the club had won medals in this women’s age group at the championships.
Charlotte Alexander, who joined Tonbridge in the early Summer, is an established junior international and showed that she is in good form on the first leg. She took the lead early on the first leg and was always to the fore, eventually finishing a close second, recording 8.40 for the 2.5 kilometres course. Imogen Amos took over, showing her best form to date and keeping Tonbridge in the top six. This left Katie Goodge on the anchor leg and her split of 9.29 lifted the team two places, but with the winning Loughborough University team ineligible for medals, amongst the clubs, Tonbridge were in the third placed championship position.
The under 20 men missed a medal themselves by just four seconds in their race, over three legs of three kilometres. A total of 63 teams started, with Matthew Dubery coming in 20th on the first leg. James Kingston then made significant progress against the teams ahead, recording 8.58, which was the fastest split of all the second leg runners. The team was in 4th at this stage, but with Matthew Taylor being chased by the Aldershot athlete, who has run for Great Britain. Taylor couldn’t quite hold him off and finished 5th, although once again one of the teams ahead was a university squad.
The Tonbridge senior men’s team couldn’t quite get amongst the medals, but as a squad put in a very strong performance, with two teams in the top ten, from 172 starters. The race was over four legs, each of an undulating five kilometres. Kieran Reilly ran 15.51 on the extremely competitive first leg, finishing 25th, with Jamie Goodge a couple of places and seconds behind for the B team. Alex Howard (16.18) moved the B team up to 17th and Steve Strange (16.25) put the B team 19th.
Alasdair Kinloch (15.51) looked strong throughout his leg and moved the team up eleven places to 6th, with the B team improving to 13th through Simon Coppard (16.25). Corey De’Ath, with a 15.55 split, gained on four of the five clubs ahead, overtaking one to haul the team into 5th, whilst Ben Murphy ran 16.06 to move the B team into 9th.
The under 17 men’s team was the final Tonbridge squad to claim a top ten place, in their race of three legs of three kilometres. Huxley Crush(9.42), George Hopkins (9.32) and Jamie MacDonald (9.29) gave them 10th of 83 teams, with the B team placing 23rd.
The Senior Women finished 29th, from 143 starters, also over three legs of three kilometres. The team was Ellie Baxter (10.59), Pandora Banbury (11.43) and Philippa Robinson (11.39).
Tonbridge had teams competing in four of the other races with the under 13 boys 31st, under 15 boys 17th, under 15 girls 31st and under 17 women 22nd.
On Sunday, Verity Hopkins set a new personal best of 77.39 for the half marathon at Reading.
Links to photos, videos, results and more details here – https://www.tacdistancerunners.com