Well, here we go again, the Bingley Junior Championship race 3 at a Sunny and Warm Pendle Hill, Barley Village. Overall, a great event with 11 Bingley juniors joining Keighley and Craven and Ilkley to keep the Yorkshire Flag flying at what was the Lancashire Championship race. K&C turned up on mass but it was the Bingley Blue and White who flew around the fell and blended in with the colour of the sky and the few light clouds.
Races started with the U8’s race, sadly this week we didn’t have juniors running, but I know they will be back soon.
In the U10’s race, we had 3 juniors in Joe Carnelley, William Moorhouse and Samuel Mantel. All 3 having great runs in the sunshine with Joe taking a great 3rd place overall. Both Will and Sam finished in good times with big bright smiles on their faces.
In the U12’s race, we again had 3 juniors but this time it was 2 boys, Ruben Mantel and Joseph Treasure-Jones and 1 girl in Lucy Shutt. Again, all raced very well over the longer than normal distance and with 2 steep climbs, on at the start and one in the middle of the race. Ruben led the team out and was close to the leaders, closely followed by Joseph and Lucy. After the turn both Ruben and Lucy faded a little allowing Joseph to power away and led the three of them home, behind some strong individuals from other clubs.
The largest Bingley team on the day was in the U14’s race with 5 racers, Alex Stewart, Matthew Merrick, Victoria Merrick, Olivia Roper and Abigail White. It was a great to see the 5 of them on the start line, working out the tactics of how they would run the race. A battle was had between all of them in our championship and good places were recorded in the race by all of them. Matthew and Alex took 6th and 7th respectively and finished with a second between them, Victoria was the lead girl taking a fantastic 3rd place overall in the girl’s race. Abigail White then followed with Olivia Roper fast on her heels.
It was also great to see Henry Moorhouse cheering the all the teams on, hopefully he will be back running soon and joining the U14’s on the fell. It was also good to see our juniors warming up together before the races, a real credit to the club and great to see the Blue on White training on the hill in front of the other clubs.
Last week I picked out a star performer, so I must do the same for this report. This is more difficult this week as I could pick a number of them, if not all of them but I think the honour this week must go the Samuel Mantel. He pushed and harried all round the U10’s route, never stopping to take breath and smiled all the way. He’s the only member of the team today who doesn’t do any formal fell training on a Saturday with Andy Nicoll or with the Tuesday teams. Well done Sam, keep it up and I hope to see you again soon.