Bucks Schools Cross Country Championships

There was a good turnout of Chiltern athletes running for their schools at the Bucks Schools Cross Country Champs at Stowe School on Wednesday. There were a number of individual wins and several runners gained automatic selection for the Bucks Schools team for the English Schools Champs in Yorkshire in March. Many others put themselves in the frame as squad members.

The Year 5/6 girls race was won by Emilia Ingham who won the race overall and the year 6 component. Ingrid Bellwood was 12th overall and 3rd Year 5 and Elodie Bellwood was 18th overall and fifth Year 5. Thomas Cooper ran very well to be 14th in the Year 5/6 Boys race, 12th Year 6.
 
The Minor Girls (Year 7) race saw an emphatic win for Juliette MacDougall. Also well up in the field of 93 were Bea Robinson (5th), Holly Knott (8th), Soraya Roughton (9th), Annie-Rose Quantrill (12th) and Mala Bahia (17th).
 
The Minor Boys race saw the best run of the season for Zac Taylor who took an impressive win. Two newcomers ran well: Toby Reynolds was third and Harris Lawrence 13th.
 
Kara Gorman won the Junior Girls race and there was good packing from Maya Davis (4th), Nia Clarke (5th), Megan Lockwood (6th) and Evelyn Wildman (7th). Carys Jones was 26th from a field of 122.
 
The Junior Boys race was billed as 4k but strava revealed a circuit around 4.8k, so a tough ask for younger runners. There were many very good Chiltern performances on this tough course. Thomas Reynolds led the way in second and was followed by Charlie Quantrill (3rd), Logan Gaskell (5th), Eddie O’Brien (6th), Felix Danielli (9th), Hugo Mundy (13th), George Mawby (14th), Jacob McCall (24th), Kit Dixon (30th), Isaac McCall (32nd), and Theo Roughton (34th) from another field of 122.
 
The Intermediate and Senior Girls ran together on the same 4.8k route. The seniors tended to be towards the front of the race and there were 16 in total. Maddie Hughes (3rd), Frankie Baxter (4th), Ellie Shield (5th), Maddie Rae (9th) and Jo Snelling (10th) all did well.
 
There were 55 Intermediates running and the highest placed Chiltern athlete was Marlie Nkoane in 9th. Also competing were Katie Allsop (11th), Lily Jessop-Tranter (22nd), Ffion Harman (24th), Lydia Cross (27th), Issy Robinson who had a rare off day with breathing difficulties (28th), Abi Masters (29th), Rebecca Lawson (40th) and Isla Dalby (50th).
 
Intermediate Boys and Senior Boys also ran together, this time on a 5.6k route, testing for year 10s not used to the distance. Twenty-one seniors battled hard and Archie Pinder (4th), Isaac Jessop-Tranter (5th) and Euan Pinder (7th) all ran well.
 
Chiltern had a strong presence in the Inters and Alex Hughes took a good win, Aidan Suleyman was third, Edward Johnson fifth, Callum Powell seventh, Daniel Munn 11th, Rory Hilton 12th,  Jack Turner 15th, Dylan Rossi 25th, Zach Cleary 27th, and James Malin 46th.