Highgate Harriers’ six scorers won the South of England Cross Country senior team Championship, with a really low score in the cross country, at Beckenham Place Park on Saturday (27th of January). It was over a twisting undulating course, with stretches of mud in places plus a thick wooded area to go through and, long grass slopes with some fast going too. The Highgate Harriers had their men up near the front from the start of the approximate 9 miles course. They achieved a low 84 points score, their last scorer for the ‘A’ team was 28th out of 720 finishers. Their six ‘impressive men’ were 2nd Alex Lepretre 43:16; 4th Roger Poolman 43:35; 12 Flurry Grierson 44:54, 14 Seyed Ghafri 45:09; 24 Rob Wilson 46’00 & 28 Charlie Heywood 46:13. Just Behind the Highgate team on 84 were Hercules Wimbledon 145; Kent AC 232; Tonbridge 280 and Bedford & County AC 310.
The other Highgate Harriers, inside the first 100 were 57 James Ross 47:32; 58 Sam Jinks 47:33; 86 Pete Chambers 48:45; & 100 Jon Laybourn 49:41. The winner was James Kingston of Tonbridge AC in 42:50 but, it was noticed Lepretre & Poolman 2nd & 4th respectively, had particularly good runs.
Lauren Russell followed up her 11th in the International Under 20 race, the previous week on Hampstead Heath , with a 3rd place out of 73 runners in the Under 20 race in 21:06.The winner did 20:57.. In the Southern Junior men Under 20 event 161 completed Highgate were the 7th team to complete, Thomas Chadwick was 23rd in 29.25; 37 was Felix Kant 19:38; 89 Liam Bailey 20:41 and 120 Wiremu Nicol in 22:10.
At Trent Park on the 10th of February is the Final Metropolitan League of the season, Highgate will be fighting for glory.