Luton
Athletic Club

A determined group of Luton AC athletes met at 6am Saturday morning to travel to Leeds for the English National Cross Country Championships. At first it seemed that the day might not happen at all when the coach did not turn up at the allotted 6am. It finally arrived at 6.30 and the frozen group of athletes and supporters boarded for the long journey.

The course at Newsam Park offered a gruelling test for all athletes, being hilly and extremely muddy in places with a bitterly cold Northeasterly wind blowing. In fact the mud was so bad in places Senior men’s winner, Glynn Tromens of Coventry Codiva, lost his shoe and at one point, stopped and refitted it but lost it once again with 2000 metres remaining, this time leaving it and taking victory with one shoe only.

Luton boasted some fine individual performances in several categories but it was Sarah Simpson and Perry Howarth in their respective under 15 races that provided the highest places as each finished 15^th in their races. Bearing in mind that both of these athletes are in the first year of the under 15 groups they must be looking forward to next years event already.

It was the under 15 boys who closed in the only finishing team for Luton on the day in a creditable 20^th when Tom Best finished 132^nd, Nathaniel Quigley 136^th and Liam Marchant completed the scoring team in 201^st of the 302 finishers. Colin Johnson ran a fine race to finish 226^th, Stuart Baird 244^th and Jonathan Drinkwater 248^th prove that this is clearly the most competitive group for Luton.

In the Senior Women’s race Claire McMahon continued her very impressive season with a strong 50^th of the 454 finishers and in the Senior Men’s Paul Farmer racing his way back to fitness after an injury interrupted winter made the top 100 in 98^th of the 1400 men’s finishers. Chris Drinkwater again proved what a fine cross country season he has enjoyed with 93^rd in the under 17’s race.

Other noteworthy performances of the day came from Laura Gibson in the under 13 girls race where she finished a highly creditable 111^th of the 322 finishers. Laura was followed by Claire Tucker in 173^rd and Rosie Quigley in 266^th.

Chris Stebbings

Luton AC