Gloucestershire XC League – 1/11/25 – Cheltenham & County Harriers

The second fixture of the Gloucestershire League headed to Cirencester Park. Harriers were in fine form once again with lots of top 3 finishes and many athletes improving on their first fixture results.

In our senior races it was the ever reliable Petra Vymetalova who led the way with a 16th place finish. Petra was closely followed home by Jane Fairbairn in 18th and Ellie Balfe in 20th. In the same race Michael Ede finished 3rd in the M65+ category.

The senior men’s team were led by Jamie Bell in 19th with Harrison Miles and Heath Bampton also making the top 40 in 32nd and 35th.

Freddie Miles and Fraser Elliott got the club off to the perfect start finishing 1st and 2nd respectively in the U11 boys race. Arthur Van Der Nelson also made the top ten in 7th. Agnes Johnson led the U11 girls team home with a strong run for 4th with Hana Steele, 10th, and Bethan Wilson, 12th, completing the team.

In the U13 girls race Jess Bailey improved by one position from the first fixture finishing superbly in 2nd place and was followed home by Matilda Lawton in 3rd who impressed with a big improvement from 7th in the first fixture! Elsie Thornton, Maisy Little and Avery Church all also made the top 10 in 6th, 7th and 10th respectively. The U13 boys team were led in by Theo Litman in 5th place, Benjamin Lewis finished in 7th and Joseph Bradshaw was 9th.

Jack Shingler made it two 2nd place finishes in two races, finishing just 14 seconds behind the leader. There were also good performances from Noah Seabright in 7th and Monty Wilkins in 9th. There were only two U15 girls competing this time around but both made an impression with Megan Cowley finishing 6th and Bella Watts just behind in 7th.

Similarly our two U17 women also left their mark. Jess Sheppard produced a brilliant run to finish 3rd and Freya Braiden finished well in 5th, both improving on their first round runs. First U17 boy for the club was Tom Wightman in 4th. Oliver Wilson finished in 6th and Eddie Atkins rounded off the A team in 12th.