2018 has begun brilliantly for our juniors with a great turnout for the Greater Manchester XC Championships, particularly from our U13 girls.  The clear highlight was the performance of Aisling McHale, who managed to beat tough competition to win the U13 girls crown.  She’d been handed the Number 1 to wear before the start and made it look as if that was an intentional decision by the organisers!

Aisling has shown what several years of commitment and regular training can do.  She started at the club when she turned 8 and has gradually got better and better.  Becoming county champion is a fantastic achievement, especially when you consider that she still has another year to go in the U13 age group.  It also represents a massive improvement on last year’s performance of 26th.  Let’s hope this stunning form continues!

We had 7 other girls in the U13 age category.  Hopefully they will be inspired by Aisling’s achievement and think that’s something they might be able to do in the future.  As a team, they just missed out on the medals in 4th place.  Esme Pearson in 16th and Holly Newton in 17th were the other counters.  Esme was well up on last year’s placing with Holly managing a very impressive top 20 finish as an 11 year old.  She’s got two year’s left in this age category.

Although, it doesn’t earn any medals, it’s worth pointing out that we had the first B team.  Sara Herceg-Millington (29th), Beth Robinson (32nd) and Orla Flynn (35th) making up that trio.  Not far behind were Eleanor Nicholson (37th) and Kate Fitzgerald (43rd).  All of these have the potential to push to be one of our counters in future years.  As an added bonus, all of them will still be in the U13 age category next year, so imagine what a strong team that could be!

It wasn’t just the U13 girls in action.  In the U15 girls Millie Pearce impressed in finishing 12th and we weren’t done with the medals yet.  Daniel Racle ran brilliantly to finish 3rd in the U20 men.  When you consider that Andy Norman finished off the day by becoming the senior men’s Championship, it was a fantastic day’s running for the club.

 

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