Six Titles in the bag in the Oxford Mail League – Harwell

Congratulations to Izzy Fry (u-17), Sophie Crumly (Senior Women), Jess Franklin (V1) & Irwin Fairclough (V3) who have all secured Individual Oxford Mail Cross Country League titles with one match to spare.  This is reward for their hard work in all three rounds this season. Izzy has now earned League title’s in three different age groups following her success in 2013 as an under 13, and in 2015 as the under 15 Champion. Meanwhile Sophie and Jess have now successfully defended the Senior Woman’s, and Veteran’s Women’s title’s they won last season. As well as individual success, both our Senior Women and Men’s teams are unable to be caught with huge leads at the top of their Divisions.

On a tricky course at Harwell Izzy initially shared the lead with Under 15 team mate Kitty Shepherd-Cross before pulling away, but both were in sparkling form to finish 1st and 2nd respectively just the day after both recording 6th place finishes at the South Inter Counties Schools races at Brands Hatch, and they are now due to receive a call up to the English Schools Championships at Norwich in March. Earlier another athlete taking on her second race of the weekend was Luci Robertson, this time out Luci managed a season’s best 4th place in the under 13 Girls. There were several other athletes that did their medal prospects no harm at all after running well at this fixture. Oliver Hamlin came 3rd in the under 9 race, George Ferguson recorded his best League finish to date as runner up in the under 13 Boys and Vladimir Tsagov came 3rd in the under 17 Men’s, maintaining that position in the overall league. Yasmin Ryder moved tantalizingly close to sealing the under 20 title following two wins with a second place this time out and James Craggs, enjoying a fine season, finished 7th and is currently in equal 1st in the Senior Men’s category.

Well done to everyone who ran, your support has been fantastic, just one league fixture to go now on March 5th.

Andy Tuttle