Athletics club impress at annual event in the Midlands

Rugby & Northampton had another medal-winning weekend, securing silver in an impressive performance at last Saturday’s annual Midlands Counties Cross Country Relay Championships.

The athletics club had teams competing in all senior and masters events at Wolverhampton, and it was the Men’s Masters who claimed the runners-up spot around the 6km circuit in Wolverhampton.

Stephen Marks led the team off in an excellent time of 22 minutes and 19 seconds, which was the second fastest time of the day. Dean Oldfield (23:21), John Gercs (23:46) and Mike Andrews (22:43) maintained that position to ensure the silver medal went to R&N.

The Senior Men impressed too, recording a fine finish of sixth, their best placing for several years. Led by Richard Latimer, 17th in 22:41, the team climbed back up the placings with Jack Bond — who had made the long trip from Exeter University — excelling, carving through the field with a time of 21:38. That put R&N seventh, and 800m track specialist Adam Wright went five seconds quicker to move up another place, which was maintained by Daniel Williams in 23:01.

The Senior B team also impressed, with Haydn Arnall’s 22:50 the quickest — he was accompanied by Joe Lantsbery (24:21), Lewis Cherry (23:49) and Finn Hutton (23:30) for an overall finish of 16th.

Emma Bond got things started for the Senior Ladies, running excellently to finish the first leg sixth, in 25:08. Then it was the turn of the Goddards, with Kirsty finishing in 29:12 and Bethan in 28:19, helping the team to a final position of seventh.

The Ladies Masters finished creditably, too, coming home in 11th place. Angela Copson’s 29:24 kicked things off, and she was followed by Minerva Chesser (32:32) and Efthymia Katsogi (33:43) to round off a good day’s work for R&N.