Photo – The under 15 boys team who won the National Championship
Tonbridge Athletic Club travelled to Staffordshire, at the weekend, to compete in the National Cross-Country Championships, held at Weston Park, near Telford. These 2024 championships had been postponed from February, due to flooding in the area, but this rescheduled event provided dry, sunny and warm conditions, although the number of competitors was reduced from normal in some races, with the men’s event down to around 700 starters.
The Tonbridge under 15 boys competed over four kilometres in just the second of ten races, held throughout the day. More than two hundred started the four-kilometres long race, with Tonbridge having eleven competitors, the first four of which would score for the team.
Will Bachelor and Ewan Prendergast have both been training very consistently in recent weeks and led the Tonbridge team, who packed well throughout the race. Bachelor finished 13th, with Prendergast close behind in 17th, whilst Henry Cleary (24th) and Peter Fitzmaurice (26th) both had fine runs to secure the team win, from Trafford and Chelmsford.
Tonbridge also won a second set of team medals, which came from the under 20 men and their 10 kilometres race. All the scorers ran a well-paced effort, with Matthew Taylor moving from 30th after a small lap to 12th after two laps to finally finish 5th. Matthew Dubery had one of his best races, also moving through to 10th. They were supported by George Hopkins in 22nd and Max Malkinson in 36th. The team finished on 73 points and were second to Aldershot, with Cambridge and Coleridge placing third.
James Kingston had a tremendous race in the men’s 12 kilometres event, finishing third behind Hugo Milner and Ben Connor, both from Derby. Milner, who was 4th in last Winter’s European Championships, won in 37.28, with Connor at 37.53 and Kingston at 38.02. Tonbridge scored well, behind Kingston, with Ben Cole finishing 15th, after racing in the Great North Run the previous weekend. Will Beeston had one of his best performances to date in 35th, with Ted Higgins 40th, Alex Howard 51st and Cameron Chambers 51st completing the scoring six. Bristol won the championship for the first time in their history, from Highgate and Leeds, with Tonbridge on 194 points, just five behind Leeds.
The under 17 men were also very close to the medals, finishing just two points away, as Harrison Fraser (30th), Tom Beghein (37th), Mark Bridger (46th) and Toby Bawtree (53rd) scored. First home for Tonbridge in the other races were Katie Goodge 36th in the senior women’s race, Jess Poland 28th in the under 20 women’s, Purdey Hutchings 29th in the under 13 girls’, Joel Graffin 80th in the under 13 boys’ and Isabel Gowing 78th in the under 15 girls’ race.
Elsewhere, Verity Hopkins had a fine run at the Copenhagen Half Marathon running for an England team, where she ran 72.38.
Note – At the time of writing I only have this link to the Kent under 13 and Masters championships ie no field events – https://meets.rosterathletics.com/public/competitions/details/search?id=25780