Central win national titles at the double

Oct 29 2008

IT was another remarkable double for Central Athletic Club as their men’s and women’s team took the National Cross Country Relay Championships for the second year in succession at a storm-battered Cumbernauld course.

The Central men’s team won a tightly fought battle against Shettleston Harriers, with the ladies dominating the race from gun to tape with a comfortable victory by well over two minutes.

A further highlight was the silver medal winning exploits of the junior girls team.

The contest of the day was set up to be Central’s defence of their men’s title with Shettleston Harriers’ Eritreans, Kilbarchan’s young guns, as well as strong teams from Inverclyde and Ron Hill Cambuslang all fancying their chances in the 4x4000m race.

With Shettleston as strong favourites the stage was set for an intriguing race even before the heavy underfoot conditions, gale force winds and incessant rain were added to the mix.

Scott McDonald was charged with first leg duties and, showing maturity well beyond his years, brought his team round in fourth (14mins 28secs) behind Chris MacKay’s fastest leg of the day (14.02) for Inverclyde, Shettleston’s Tewoldeberhan Mengisteab (14.08) and Shettleston’s ‘B’ team runner Tsegai Tewelde (14.25).

Ross Houston (14.53) continued the challenge on the second leg as he sped past Shettleston’s ‘B’ team and Inverclyde and chased down Shettleston’s Tsegezab Woldemichael to complete the defining leg of the day, closing to within two seconds of the lead with Kilbarchan’s Derek Hawkins finishing the leg a further two seconds back.

The third leg saw Robert Russell (14.30) pushing past Shettleston’s Paul Sorrie early in the stage before carving out a seven second lead by the end of the leg with Kilbarchan a further 38secs down so the destination of the gold and silver medals came down to a head-to-head between Alastair Hay and Shettleston’s Amanuel Hagus.

With the knowledge that all the Eritreans had arrived in Scotland to compete for their country with world-class credentials in the World Cross Country Championships in March, Alastair knew he would have his work cut out to hold a lead to the finish.

Amanuel showed his class by closing the gap to four seconds by the halfway point and it looked as though the race was going down to the wire.

But Alastair had other ideas as he called on all his reserves of strength and experience over the latter half of the race and ensured there would be no need to call on his sprint finish as he pulled his lead out to some 17secs by the finish with the second fastest leg of the day (14.04).

Shettleston came home second with Kilbarchan picking up the bronze medals a further 60 seconds behind.

Central’s ‘B’ team also showed great resolve in the conditions with Sean Reilly (15.01) bringing the team round for 12th at the end of the first leg. Lewis Millar (15.28) survived a heavy fall in the mud to pick up four places on the second leg while Alex Hendry had a storming run (14.59) to bring his team up to fourth at the end of the third leg. Michael Wright finished off the ‘B’ team challenge with a 16min 10secs run with the team finishing in a superb sixth place.

It was Robert Wiseman (15.38) who kick-started the ‘C’ team’s challenge, coming home in an superb 20th position. Miguel Merayo’s leg of (17.55) saw the team slip to 33rd but legs of 17.10 by Will Hensman and 16.19 by Murray MacLarty brought the team through, first to 28th then finishing 22nd overall.

Central’s veteran team (‘E’ team) of Alex Milne (17.04/43rd), David Armour (17.16/36th), Ewan Jack (17.25/34th) and Robert Hutchison (18.32) finished 36th overall and seventh veteran team.

The ‘D’ Team of Ian McDonald (18.18), Hugh Buchanan (19.00), Liam McCabe (18.42) and Alan Hume (19.14) finished 62nd, while the ‘F’ Team of David Hay (21.13), Alan Gall (21.15), John Millar (21.55) and John Dickson (25.09) came home in 88th and it was Philip Hendry (18.12) and Jim Drummond (24.24) who rounded off Central’s effort in an incomplete team.

The senior ladies team hardly got a mention in the pre-race publicity, but with the addition to the winning east district relay team of Morag MacLarty, the team were always going to be contenders.

Starting the rejuvenated Morag off on the first leg proved to set the scene for the whole race as she led from the gun and established a 70 second lead over the field of 49 teams, with a 15.52 run that turned out to be by far the fastest leg of the whole race.

Fiona Thompson put the Central trio further ahead, stretching the lead to 1min 42sec with a personal time of 17.13.

Emma Waterhouse had a final leg run of 17.25, pushing the lead even further to a 2min 27sec winning margin over Kilbarchan.

To prove how difficult the conditions were, however, Central’s winning time of 50.30 was some two minutes slower than their winning time in last year’s race.

The second team was led off by Alison Docherty with a great 17.24 first leg for fifth place at the changeover, with Jennifer Emsley (10th, 18.52) and Sarah Wiseman (12th, 19.33) to finish in 12th overall with 55.49.

The third Central team home were the masters ladies team, who took a medal in the masters competition for the fourth successive year, winning third place in that competition and 20th team overall.

Jane Waterhouse led off with 19.59s for fourth place (31st place overall), Fiona Kelsall moved them up into third in the masters stakes (24th, 20.15),with Hazel Dean further advancing through the field to consolidate 20th after a 18.27 timing for 58.41 overall.

The fourth Central team home was led off by Stephanie Loach (40th, 20.38), passing on to Kayleigh McGurk (32nd, 21.08) and Gill Brett (38th, 23.32) with an overall time of 65.18.

The junior girls relay race was a thrilling affair for the Central supporters, run over three legs of 2500m.

Kathryn Gillespie led off for Central and it is a measure of Kathryn’s ability that no-one was surprised that the youngest of the Gillespie running dynasty came home on the opening under-13 leg in first place (11.23) with a 21 second lead over Edinburgh and Dundee.

Rachel Adamson took over on the under-15 leg, putting on a top class performance, holding the lead at 19 seconds with her 11.15 being the second fastest under-15 leg of the day.

Rosie Hastings was another who rose to the occasion on the under-17 leg as she faced the daunting task of holding off girls with faster times on paper.

Dundee repeated the story of two weeks earlier at the east district championships by flowing past Rosie to take the win.

But Rosie bravely defended her second place from fast-catching Giffnock North and Edinburgh till the finishing phase and then came up trumps with a sprint for the line that turned what looked like a set of hard-worked bronze medals back to superb silver as she re-took Giffnock’s runner with a personal time of 12.00 and an overall team time of 34.38.

Central’s other girls teams battled through the mud against some 59 teams. Central’s teams were Emily Greenan 28th/12.58, Imogen Burnell 26th/12.44, Catriona Buchanan 22nd/12.07 to finish with 37.49; Lisa Hardman 49th/13.38, Kirsty Buchanan 31st /12.33, Julie Cook 37th/13.16 to finish with 39.27; Tara Walls 36th/13.18, Stacey Hardman 38th/13.21, Shona Buchanan 13.19/38th in a total time of 39.58. Farren Parkins 45th /13.38, Molly Tweedle 42nd/13.08, Amy Hendry 42nd/13.46, total time of 40.32. Roanna Fraser 54th/14.05, Cairy McNeil 58th/14.39, Heather Smillie 56th/15.53, total time of 44.37s.

The young males race was held on the same course as the girls and it was under-13 Scottish pentathlon champion Alexander Semple who was introduced to cross-country with a place in Central’s ‘A’ team and Alex had to show all his resilience as he came round in 33rd place in 11min 52secs.

In comparison, Tom Watson has loads of cross-country experience and here picked up a fantastic 23 places on the under-15 leg (10.06), leaving it to up and coming Scott Green to face up to the under-17 challenge and bring the team through to eighth overall with a personal 9.53 clocking.

The ‘B’ team of Nathan Betton (39th/12.06), Ross Milne (10.36), picking up 20 places, and Chris Clarke (10.49) brought the team home in 22nd place.

The ‘C’ team of Philip Wright (59th/13.21), Roddy Irvine (54th/11.44) and David Hutchison (48th/10.46) all ran strongly while the ‘D’ team of Michael McCabe (71st/14.47), Logan Bonar (63rd/11.45) and David MacKinlay (11.59) finished well in 61st place.

It was left to Joe Little (57th/13.09), Sam Fraser (58th/12.50) and Sandy MacLarty (63rd/13.23) to complete Central’s effort.

The now well-established Central Athletic Club Junior Cross Country Series started on Sunday at Stirling University with an excellent turnout of 18 athletes, who were welcomed by squally showers and a one and a half mile race around the University Loch.

It was under-15s Sam Fraser (9min 36secs) and Kirsty Buchanan (9.41) who proved to be the top athletes on the day while the main contest was among the under-11 athletes, where Jack Kerr (10.06) caught the eye as he finished in overall third place and first under-11 home.

Scott Fleming (19.26) continues to impress and there were further committed runs from the remaining under-11s Lewis Strachan (10.44), Rory Strachan (11.31), Jack Bauchop (11.56) and Liam McGregor (13.14), all making their debut.

There were good runs from the under-11 girls with Abbie Watson coming home first in 11min 10sec, closely followed by Bevan Trevis (11.33), Charlotte Tilley (11.34), Jennifer Downie (12.02) and Helen Mitchell (12.36).

Michael McCabe (10.26) ran well to take the under-13 boys’ honours, as did Farren Parkins (10.18) in the under-13 girls’ category, with Eilidh MacCorquodale (11.47) and Amy Bilsland (12.46) taking the minor positions in this age group.

Jenna Cramb (12.46) was another newcomer to the series, finishing as second under-15 girl.