The Cross Country Club had the honour of being the first school team to compete after arriving in the new livery minibus; the smart look of the transport was matched by the strongest squad to compete at this level. To put this in context, around 500 teams from the regions of Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and Kent were involved in the first County Cup round which fed into the South East Final.
The hosts, the usually omnipotent Judd School, also quite rightly reported that this set of schools was especially strong this year as many schools that progressed to the grand final in prior years did not do so this year due to the astonishing standard of the teams; most elite club teams would have found it difficult this year! Given this high standard, the Ladies team were astonishing, placing top 8 in the South East. Sophie, Rowan Sophie and Elena were magnificent in their event, making this the best showing for our school at this grouping to date.
The Boys Atharav, Pancho, Marcus, Joshua, Haruki and Luke placed one better. Though they did not make the grand final this year, in other years they would have been close to matching our best ever result in this level of competition. The Juniors had some last minute heroes appear due to unfortunate on the day illness . They were equally magnificent in being inside the top dozen – another unremittingly strong section . Will, Tomas, Adrian, Anas and Ali looked smooth as they blitzed out of the starting gate. The highest individual on the day was a blistering 6th from Max.
We are looking forward to a great Borough Championships next Thursday morning and our own Judge Cup held on the last Wednesday afternoon in November, both at Grists. Sandwiched in-between is our second Epsom Downs race on 24th November.