North Wales Athletes Shine at Championships

It was really encouraging for North Wales Sport to see some of the regions rising stars perform so well at the weekends Welsh Cross Country Championships down in Swansea.
Ricky Challinor of Deeside had a superb race in the Under 20 Men’s Competition, picking up a Silver medal in a time of 24:58 over the 6585m course. He was followed by Colwyn Bay’s Harry Jones who was rewarded with a Bronze medal for a gutsy performance. It will be very interesting to see what these two talented distance runners do in the next few years, but hopefully these sorts of performances will give them the confidence they need to compete well in the high profile National and International races. Teammates Michael Pierce and Gethin Edwards battled it out all the way to occupy 12th and 13th position of this high standard race.
There were also some great results for North Wales in the Under 13 Men’s event. Tom Earley had a superb run to secure a Silver medal for Colwyn Bay in a time of 10:44. He was just pipped to the post by Matthew Antoniazzi of Cwmbran. Although having a great race, I’m sure David Blower will be slightly disappointed after missing out on a medal by just one second. He finished 4th in a time of 10:48.
In the Under 17 Men’s event, despite a brave effort, Phil Edge (Deeside) just missed out on a medal after completing the 5720m race in a time of 22:27, which left him in 5th. Menai’s Steve Pierce (8th),Huw Jones (10th) and Andrew Woodcock (14th) were not far behind.
Wrexham’s Gina Paletta will be very pleased with her 4th placed finish in the Under 20 Women’s race as she usually competes over Multi Terrain, where she is a Welsh International. Bethan Till (Menai) finished 11th in the Under 17 Women’s race, with club mate Victoria Taylor coming home in 15th. In the Under 15 Girl’s competition, Sarah Livett and Lisa Peters, both of Menai Athletics Club ran well to finish 10th and 11th respectively on the tough Swansea course.
Overall it was a successful day for the North Wales runners who made the journey down to Singleton Park, with Challinor’s and Earley’s Silver medal’s standing out as great performances.