Lauren heads seven BAC medal winners at County XC Championships
Congratulations to Lauren Bone who won the U-15G title at the 2024/25 Bedfordshire AAA County Cross Country Championships - and to the six other BAC Juniors who also won medals.
The annual championships, which as usual were combined with those of Buckinghamshire AA, were held over muddy and undulating courses at Campbell Park, Milton Keynes, on Saturday December 14.
As the new Bedfordshire U-15G XC champion, Lauren will now see her name engraved on a winner’s shield which already includes that of famous English marathon runner and track athlete Paula Radcliffe who won the same event in 1988 (see photo in the Facebook gallery)!
BAC’s other Bedfordshire individual medal winners at Campbell Park were:
Oliver Weddell, 2nd, U-15B;
Sidney Hammond, 3rd, U15B;
Austin Milner, 3rd, U-13B;
Oscar Findon, 3rd, U-11B.
In addition, Austin, Theo Milner and Ross Bone combined to win medals as the 2nd placed Bedfordshire U-13B team.
An eighth BAC Junior, Henry Knox, was running well in the middle of the pack in the U-17M race until he hurt an ankle on a muddy corner and had to drop back down the field.
With many of BAC’s senior cross country runners due to take part in a Three Counties League match the following day, Charlie Arnold was the sole club Senior to run in the County XC Championships, finishing 4th in the Veteran Men Over 60 race.
With their top three finishes, Lauren, Ollie, Sid and Austin have all secured automatic selection for the Bedfordshire squad which will compete at the 2025 UK Inter Counties Cross Country Championships due to be held in Nottingham on March 8. They could be joined by one or two more BAC runners when the Bedfordshire AAA meets in early January to pick the other members of the county’s maximum eight-strong teams for each race.
As the winner of her County XC Championship race, Lauren should also be selected for the Eastern region team which competes in the 2025 Mini London Marathon Championships (for young athletes in the U-13, U-15 and U-17 age categories) on Saturday April 26 next year.
Photos: Thanks to Helen Milner, Sarah Findon, Doug Hammond, Alison Bone and Phil Hastings for supplying the photos to go with this report.
Bedfordshire Results: http://bedfordshireaaa.org.uk/Beds%20AAA%20Website/bedsaaa/2024/XC/BedfordshireXCChamps2024-25Results.pdf
Combined Bedfordshire & Buckinghamshire Results should be published shortly on the Power of 10 website:
https://www.thepowerof10.info/results/resultslookup.aspx