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West Yorkshire Cross Country League 2012 : Juniors

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The overall picture is most encouraging; with our juniors really beginning to look like a team and the statistics bear that out.

There were 37 entries, of whom 34 ran at least once. 8 athletes ran all four races, and 21 ran 3, qualifying them for an overall position.

We had entries in 7 of the 8 junior races (we had no U11 Girls), and in 4 of those we managed an overall position, the best of which was achieved by the U13 Girls in 5th place.

5 of our U11 Boys achieved an overall position: Joseph Carnelley, Jonathan Sutcliffe, Curtis Rhodes, Mason Cameron and William Moorhouse, and all of them have gained valuable racing experience.

Our most successful team, the U13 Girls, also managed 5 overall positions: Vicki Merrick, Anna Whitehead, Olivia Roper, Katie Smith and Megan Bickersdyke. Lucy Shutt and Rhea Southcott also made good contributions when available.

Our U13 Boys was the team most affected by other attractions, but 4 did manage an overall position: Matthew Merrick, Joseph Treasure-Jones, Adam Thompson and Josh Capper.

The most consistent performance came from our U15 Girls, all 4 of whom ( Abi White, Katy Boden, Maia Cameron and Bethan Johnston) achieved overall positions : a real team performance.

Others who achieved an overall result were Emile Cairess in the U15 Boys, Sarah Dewhirst in the U17 Ladies, and Daniel Smithurst in the U17 Men.

Individual performances have been fully covered in other areas of our website, but I really must mention our three “medallists”: Matthew Merrick was a battling third in the U13 Boys, Emile Cairess an excellent second in the U15 Boys, and Vicki Merrick an outstanding first in the U13 Girls – Bingley’s first West Yorkshire League Champion for a good number of years. Congratulations to these three, but also to every runner who took part and who contributed to the very special team atmosphere, which was the true highlight of the series: onwards and upwards!

Tony Kingham.