Best of British

NATIONAL TITLES AND CROSS CHALLENGE PRIZES WERE AT STAKE LAST SATURDAY AT PRESTWOLD HALL NEAR LOUGHBOROUGH.

- ASON HENDERSON & MARTIN DUFF

RUNNERS came from far and wide to contest the Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships last Saturday. They travelled from all corners of the nation to Prestwold Hall on the outskirts of Loughborough in defiance of the coronavirus outbreak. Up for grabs were Cross Challenge prizes and national titles at what is effectively the de facto British championships.

The senior races were won by an Ethiopian-born man who moved to the UK and settled in Southampton and an Oxford University student who had been due to race in the World Universities Cross Country Championships in Morocco on the same day until the virus put paid to her plans.

Perhaps the geographical spread was best demonstrated in the under-20 women’s race, though, when an athlete who runs for Inverness and represents Scotland North beat a runner from the opposite end of the country about 700 miles away in Cornwall.

One thing drew them together, however. They faced the shared challenge of negotiating a testing course on the rolling East Midlands countryside. It was nowhere near as muddy as the 2018 event at the same venue but nevertheless contained plenty of sections of sticky mud and chewed up turf as gusty winds swirled around the course.

Senior women

PERFECT preparation produces perfect performances. Or so they say.

Charlotte Dannatt’s InterCounties experience was full of unpredictability and uncertainty, yet she took gold with her biggest athletics victory to date ahead of Jess Gibbon and Phillipa Williams.

For starters she was supposed to race at the World Universities Cross Country Championships but the Morocco event was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak and Dannatt sought a late entry to the Inter-Counties instead.