Nathan posts a brilliant first ‘first’ for our Chiltern XC League team
Biggleswade AC’s juniors produced a great team performance in this month’s Chiltern Cross Country League match - headed by U-11B runner Nathan Cornwall who achieved the club’s first race win in that league this century and very likely further back than that!
Clubs from Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire compete in the Chiltern League which is organised into two divisions (except for U-11s), with all runners competing in the same races at the same venues. Scoring is done separately for each division. BAC compete in Division 2.
The latest match, on Saturday November 15, was held at Horspath, Oxford, traditionally a very muddy venue but even with heavy rain the previous day, actually in surprisingly good condition for cross country running.
Despite the long drive in gloomy weather, nine athletes turned out for BAC, including three of our U-11s. In addition to Nathan’s win, other BAC individual highlights included Lauren Bone producing one of her best league performances to date and Sidney Hammond finishing strongly to overtake several runners in the last 100 metres of his race.
On the team front, both our U-13B team (Theo Milner and Ross Bone) and U-17M team (Sid and Henry Knox) are currently third in their respective divisions after the first two matches of the season despite each only having two of the three permitted team scorers.
Theia Freeston-Bull got BAC off to a good start in Oxford when she produced another great run to finish 12th of the 45 runners in the U-11G race.
Next up was the U-11B race, with Nathan and Teddy Warren representing BAC in a field of over 70 runners. Nathan followed up his promising first league race last month, where he finished 5th despite being tripped, to win his race by nine seconds – the first BAC race win in the Chiltern League since Divisions 1 and 2 were permanently combined in the same meeting towards the end of the 1990s. Teddy also produced a great run to finish 39th, some 12 places higher than in his first league race last month.
The U13B race saw Theo finish 22nd overall in a field of nearly 100 runners (and 4th of the 21 Division 2 runners), with Ross close behind in 31st overall and 8th in Division 2.
In the U-15 age group, Lauren finished strongly in the girl’s race to finish 15th overall of the total 70 runners and 4th of the 17 Division 2 runners. In the boy’s race, Austin Milner improved several places on his first U-15 league race last month to finish 34th overall of the more than 90 runners and 8th of 21 in Division 2.
The U-17M race saw Sid finish 24th overall of the just over 60 runners and 6th of 14 in Division 2, while Henry, running his first cross country since last February, dug in to finish 50th overall and 11th of 14 in Division 2.
Summing up the day, Alison Bone, BAC's team manager for the Chiltern XC League, commented: “Every BAC athlete rose to the challenge of the wet and muddy course, taking it in their stride and producing superb results. Well done! You should all be very proud of your achievements. A special mention must go to Nathan on his outstanding run. Fantastic!
“The next three Chiltern League matches are all a bit closer to home, starting with Milton Keynes on Saturday December 6, followed by Watford in January and Luton in February. It would be great to see a few more BAC runners join our great team for some of those meetings."
If you are interested in joining the club’s Chiltern League team, please contact Alison to let her know your availability.
RESULTS: https://chilternccl.co.uk/results/
PHOTOS: Thanks to Lee Cornwall, Doug Hammond, David Bull and Phil Hastings for the photos which accompany this report.