Young athletes take U11 girls’ gold at Thurso event
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A LARGE group of young runners from East Sutherland Athletics Club travelled to Thurso on Saturday for Round 1 of the North Cross Country League.
The host club presented a tough, hilly course, made even more challenging by the recent rain and a strong, cold wind.
This seemed to suit the ESAC youngsters as they proceeded to completely dominate the event with five individual winners and six team victories from the eight age group races.
Catriona Scott got things going with a fine second place in the under-11 girls’ race, followed just two seconds later by Mya Rush who took a superb fourth place in her first race in the North League. Catriona Wilson ran strongly for fifth and Jessie Munro completed the scoring in eighth to give ESAC the team gold.
It was team silver for the under-11 boys thanks to great performances from Shane Turney (2nd), Struan Oliver-Jones (6th) Hamish Munro (9th) and Archie Ryder (14th).
In the under 13 girls’ race, Constance Nankivell gave a brilliant display of front running to win the race by a huge margin. Helen Gordon (6th) was next to score but the absence of a third runner proved very costly in terms of the team title.
There were no such problems for the under-13 boys, as this talented team ran away with the title. Eoghann Gollan (1st), Fraser Roach (3rd) Adam Allan (4th) and Taran Squire (6th), all ran with real confidence.
The under-15 girls’ team showed tremendous spirit as they battled their way to team gold. Catriona Gordon (1st) was in excellent form and tremendous support from Rosie Nankivell (4th), Rebecca Mathieson (6th), Natasha Bryan (7th), Rebekah Bryan (9th) and Sarah MacDonald (11th), gave them a clear victory.
The same applied to the under-15 boys with Liam Barnsby (1st), Lewis Holmes (3rd), Angus Mohun (6th), Ruairidh Gollan (11th) and Cameron Munro (12th) all combining well to win the team title.
For the first time ESAC took team gold in both the under-17 races with Hanna Cleghorn (4th), Eilidh Macrae (6th) and Marion Gordon (8th), securing the race for women and Alasdair Coupar (2nd), Harry Richardson (3rd) and Ross Gollan (4th) doing the same for the men.
The under-20 race for women was combined with the adults’ race and 17-year-old twins, Emma and Oonagh Dunnett, took first and second in the under-20 race with Emma having the distinction of also winning the adults’ race.
Finlay Murray was faced with the daunting prospect of a nine kilometre run in the race for under-20 men and adapted extremely well to the muddy conditions to come away with a very creditable third place finish.
