Athletics
Flying the flag in Nottingham

A NUMBER of the Bromsgrove & Redditch Athletic Club members travelled to Nottingham on Saturday to take part in the Midland Counties Cross Country Championships and produced some highly impressive performances.

Held in Wollaton Park, the course ranged from 5km to 12km, and the first to compete for B&R was Orianna Ball who tackled the 5km course well to finish 41st in a time of 21mins, 40secs.

In the under 20 women's 5km race Sally Hogan was just over a minute off the first placed athlete (Birchfield's Chloe Richardson) as she finished an impressive sixth with a time of 19mins, 16secs.

In the senior women's race 170 athletes took on the 8km course and this time B&R were represented by mother and daughter team Charlotte and Tamara Ball.

Tamara finished 52nd in a time of 33mins, 51secs with Charlotte in 94th finishing just three minutes later.

The men managed to submit a full team into the senior race which consisted of a massive field of just over 400 runners taking on 12km.

As a team they placed a respectable 25th out of the 44 taking part. Individual results comprised of Andy Freeman (140th - 45mins, 35s), Steve Williams (147th - 46mins), James Atkins (206th - 48mins, 23s), Damian Lewis (234 - 49mins, 21s), Phil Anderson (249th - 50mins, 7s) and Simon Lanckham (264th - 51mins, 4s).

The previous Sunday the junior cross country athletes from the club travelled to Nuneaton to take part in the fourth West Midlands Young Athletes Cross Country League fixture.

The athletes were faced with sprints for positioning before funnelling narrowed the course to almost single file at various points, which was very different to the courses already tackled this season, but they took on the challenge well.

Results were as follows: U11 girls - 13th Amy Mijovic-Couldwell (7mins, 54); 27th Paige Martin (8mins, 15); 42nd Kitty Luscombe (8mins, 20); 64th Nicol Green (8mins, 50); 77th Hannah Walker (9mins, 02); 110th Amy Tongue (9mins, 33).

U13 girls - 19th Abbie Kemp (10mins, 20); 53rd Olivia Worth (11mins, 05); 72nd Jordan Prust (11mins, 32).

U15 girls - 18th Katie Plummer (14mins, 31); 75th Ellie Thomas (17mins, 04).

U17 women - 16th Orianna Ball (14mins, 36); 21st Izzy Billau (14mins, 56).

U11 boys - 17th Cameron Cooper (7mins, 20); 22nd Joshua Pearson (7mins, 33).

U13 boys - 39th Ben O'Connor (10mins, 14); 42nd Max Battle (10mins, 14); 46th Liam Bowden (10mins, 33); 57th Rhys Suffling (10mins, 45); 80th Neil Adam (16mins, 16).

U15 boys - 31st James Downing (13mins, 30); 60th Oliver Kemp (14mins, 44); 65th Andrew Pearson (15mins, 55); 66th Lewis Anderson (15mins, 55).

U17 men - 25th Callum Smith (18mins, 56); 29th George Thomas (19mins, 36).