Cardiff helps South Wales

Wednesday 16 December 2009

The Welsh inter regional cross country championships were held at the Royal Welsh Showground, Builth Wells last Sunday, 13th December.

On a rare sunny and dry day many of Cardiff's cross country runners were in action in the South Wales team, which secured the overall title. This was a really tough challenge for the younger runners but they did not disappoint.

In the winning under 13 girls team were Kate Seary 16th, Megan Tatnell 21st and Angharad Cole 22nd.

The U13 boys also finished 1st with Tom Edmunds an excellent 2nd, John Cove 5th, Ciaran Lewis 10th, Dafydd George 15th, Rhys Gooch 16th, Joe Mac Pherson 20th, and Kieran Harris 24th.

The Under 15 Girls finished 2nd, with Clare Harwood 14th,and Holly Morris 21st.

With the winning streak continuing the U15 Boys didn’t disappoint with Mike Ward finishing very strongly in first place. The first 4 runners in this race were from South Wales. Tom Bevan was 11th, Jack Gooch 16th, and Sam MacPherson 23rd.

The U17 Women's team also came in first with South Wales being the only region to field a complete team, Lucy Harvey was 8th, Bethan Daw 11th, Heledd Williams 15th, Eluned Hyde 17th, Rebecca Findlay 18th and Ellice Harding 19th.

In the U17 Men’s race the South again came 1st with Alex Coomber 6th, Darren Jones 14th and Joe Whitmarsh-Knight 24th.

The under 20 women's race saw Vikki Jackson win by a considerable margin with Michelle Allen 2nd, Natalie Allen 3rd, Francesca Capel 10th and Holly Ryder 12th.

In the senior women's race, reliable Bethan Strange placed second with Jemma Leahy 9th and Charlotte Gaughan 12th.

The senior men saw Andrew Hunt making a good comeback after injury for second, Peter Ryder 5th and Andrew Friend (tired after an indoor 3k the day before) 10th.