Shropshire Year 5 & 6 Cross Country Champs.

The winter Cross Country season came to a close this weekend for our young athletes who competed in the County Championships at SCAT. With 5 athletes only competing across the 4 races, we fell short of fielding a full scoring team in any of the races, however individually the performances were again encouraging and full reward for the hard work put in over the winter.

With the ground good for a fast race, the only challenge was the swirling winds which circled the first quarter of the race in the exposed sports fields.
First up, Eve Lucas ran the Y5 Girls race as the clubs sole representative. A steady start was a sensible tactic running into the winds, and this allowed Eve to pace a good run for the remainder. While her opponents were recovering from over-exertions through the wind, Eve picked off a number of placings to finish in 28th position.

28th – Eve Lucas, 6m 46secs


Next up saw the Y5 Boys trio of Eddie Brittleton and twins Tom & Freddie Turner compete, all fresh from recent successes in a local inter school competition. The boys grouped together tightly for the first half of the course, but at this point both the Turners cranked things up a gear to pull away from a large group to chase down the leading pack. It was Freddie who put a consistent effort in for the full second half of the race, including a very fast past final 200m where he moved up 3 places to finish a superb 6th overall. Tom followed his brother in closely in 10th as he pulled away from a group which included Eddie Brittleton in 15th. A very strong showing from the boys indeed.

6th – Freddie Turner, 5m 09s
10th – Thomas Turner, 5m 19s
15th – Edward Brittleton, 5m 28s


Our final interest in the days action saw the ever consistent pair of Luke Howes & Ross Kirby take to the field in the Y6 Boys race over 1600m.
As in previous races this season, the boys worked together in the early stages of the race, with a couple of metres between them leading into the halfway stage. Luke then moved on with the aim of closing down the leading pair, with a fast finish rewarded with 5th place ahead of Ross who lead home a group of five athletes to finish 11th.

5th - Luke Howes , 5m 45secs
11th – Ross Kirby, 5m 58secs

Masters Cross Country Teams- Two Top Ten Finishes.

Shrewsbury AC took two teams to the British Masters Cross Country Championships Ruthin, and had two top ten team finishers with Kev Francis and Graham Jones leading the two teams home both in 9th place in this National Event.

9 : Shrewsbury AC 40-49 age group

55 0:32:25 FRANCIS, Kevin MV40 55
61 0:32:53 HATTON, Stephen MV45 61
76 0:34:53 SMITH, Tim MV40 76


9 : Shrewsbury AC 50-59 age group

21 0:32:07 JONES, Graham MV50 21
74 0:35:35 WAKEMAN, Chris MV50 74
93 0:37:19 ROSE, Duncan MV55 93

National Indoor Championships and European Indoor Trails

One of our Senior tarck athletes Claire Burgoyne recently travelled to Sheffield for the NAtional Indoor Championships and European Indoor Trails to compete in the womens 400m. The event attracts the all the top British athletes all hoping to gain selection for the European Indoor Championships to be held soon in Italy.

Claire went in the second heat and finished a close third of five competitors qualifying to run in the next round later in the day. When this race came around she went up against some of the favourites to win the final. When she got to this race she had to come in the first three to go through to the final. Claire held onto fourth all the way through the race so just missed out on making the final. She managed to stay consistant with her times throughout the day running 55 seconds for both races.