Emily Bradley leads the Belles to victory at the London Cross Country Championships

Team co-captain Emily Bradley secured her first race win for the club and led her team to a resounding victory in the London Championships at Parliament Hill.

Emily took the lead from the Hurst Green Surrey League winner Ruby Carter of Hercules at the beginning of the second lap. She managed to create a small lead and hung on right to the end to win by ten meters.

Not far behind the two leaders, Abbey Brooke and Ruby Whyte-Wilding had a ding dong battle throughout the race. Ruby led down the final hill, but Abbey produced a last gasp sprint to narrowly win the bronze medal, both having excellent races beating some very strong opposition. Juliet Hodder, recently back from a trip to South Africa with her school, gave it a real go but suffered from a lack of training and finished 12th. However, that was just 20 points for the scoring four, compared with 60 for second team Thames.

Parliament Hill was unusually very dry, a complete contrast to the mud bath National in February. But this course is never easy with it's uphill start and an even tougher hill not long after. The scoring team were supported by a very strong group of Belles, a total of twelve finished the race.

In fact if B teams had been included in the results, the next four Belles; American Grace Rowley in 15th, then Alex Gandee, Billy McClosky and Lara Mangan all in the low 20s, would have scored just 85 points, making them the fourth team out of the 28 who completed the race, ahead of all the Southern clubs except the three medal winning teams.  

Lara, quickly getting fit again after injury, just pipped 800m runner Emma Tilley at the finish, Emma running in her first cross-country race for six years. The Belles kept coming with Eilidh Roberts, Bethan Goddard and Holly Pan all running well, finishing within the first quarter of the 271 runners who completed the race. 

RESULTS

  1. E. Bradley 21:42, 2. R. Carter (H/W) 21: 44, 3. A. Brooke 22:03, 4. R. Whyte-Wilding 22:05, 12. J. Hodder 22:55, 15, G. Rowley 23:03, 22. A. Gandee 23:34, 23. B. McClosky 23:35, 25. L. Mangan 23:46, 26. E. Tilley 23:46, 41. E. Roberts 24:47, 55. B. Goddard 25:36, 61. H. Pan 25:56.   

TEAMS

  1. Belgrave Harriers 20, 2. Thames Hare and Hounds 60, 3. Herne Hill Harriers 66, 4. London Heathside 89, 5. Hercules Wimbledon 108, 6. Clapham Chasers 144. 

Charlie Dickinson