Further Success for Harriers at Welsh National Schools Championships

Cwmbran Harrier athletes continued their recent success at the Welsh National Schools Cross Country Championship, at Brecon, on 13^th March 2004. Following outstanding individual and team performances at both the Welsh Cross Country Championships and the UK National Cross Country Championships, hopes were high of further good performances.

Despite heavy snowfall on the Thursday, running conditions were close to perfect. Not representing their club on this occasion, all the Harrier athletes were turned out for their school districts, which in the whole was East and South Wales Schools. All the Junior, Middle and Senior school children were running not only for their districts but also the chance of representing their country at the UK Schools Championship in Scotland on 4^th April.

In the Junior Boys age group strong performances came from Kyle Harvey and Grant Stokes, both of who started strongly, held their position well, and came so close to claiming their first Welsh vest. Grant Evans running his first Schools Championships found the early pace very fast, and did well not to try and chase the leaders. He settled into a good running pace and soon found that the less experienced runners suffered for trying to run too fast too soon, and moved through the field slowly to eventually finish well up the field. There was some reward for these boys as their performances along with their other East Wales School team runners earned the bronze team medal. For most of these boys it was their first medal and undoubtedly won’t be the last.

The Junior Girls event has been dominated for the last 3 years by Non Stanford of Swansea Harriers (who is currently ranked 2 in UK, and never beaten at any age group by any Welsh cross country runner) and it’s quite easy to forget the other runners in the race. This year will be different as the performance of the day came from Jessica Dickson who produced the best run of her career. In an incredible opening burst by Non Stanford she led the field by over 30 seconds on the first lap (eventually winning by over 1 minute), Jessica managed to work her way into 8^th position early on, and when the other runners found the pace too hot to handle Jessica moved up to 6^th position during the second lap holding that place for the rest of the race to claim a well deserved Welsh Vest for the first time. She has been so close for so long Jessica proves what hard work and dedication can eventually produce.

Once again, the Middle Boys produced the Harriers greatest success. Gavin Hanrahan led the Cwmbran contingent. He started relatively slowly and after 1 lap was only lying in 8^th position, moved through the field to be 4^th at the end of lap 2 and moved ahead again in the final lap to eventually finish runner up. Ieuan Thomas (who had just been selected to represent Welsh schools at the London Mini Marathon), started strong and held a consistent 4^th place all the way around, just finishing out on the medals. Special praise should be given to these 2 athletes who have qualified for welsh vests running as year 9’s against year 10 runners. Anthony Jones once again came strong at the end of the race. He passed runners in the last half mile to finish in 5^th place behind Ieuan, and Afan Humphries, representing South Wales Schools came a creditable 6^th behind Anthony. Afan who has been dominating his age group in Wales for the last 2 years had just returned from running for Wales in Italy at Under 20 level. Afan was not feeling well as the race started and still managed to qualify for Wales again. Afan did pick up a medal as the South Wales team picked up team gold and East Wales took the team silver. Team silver also went to Nick Cornock who is still performing very well in a very strong group of runners.

We now all look forward to seeing these 5 runners representing Cwmbran Harriers, their schools and Wales in Scotland in April.