Report by Roland Yeomens
Senior runners from Aldershot Farnham & District took both men’s and women’s titles in the English National Road Relay Championships at Sutton Coldfield on Saturday. The latter emphasized the club’s superiority when its B team finished second.
Louise Small put the A team into second on the penultimate leg of the women’s 4-stage event, having taken over in sixth following performances by Ruby Woolfe and Pippa Roessler. Lilly Coward set off on the anchor 24 seconds after Lincoln Wellington’s Lucy Thornton and clocked the tenth fastest time overall for victory, just over a minute ahead of Niamh Brown anchoring for AFD B whose quartet also included Emily Moyes, Maisie Grice and Anna Hedley.
The men reached second place in their 6-stage competition on the second leg where Ricky Harvie had taken over from Josh Grace in eighth. By the halfway point of the race, AFD were in the lead thanks to Ben Bradley. Adam Clarke, ninth fastest overall, and Ellis Cross gradually increased the club’s advantage before Jack Rowe, a finalist in the 3000 metres at the European Indoor Championships last March, clocked the quickest circuit of Sutton Park to come home more than a minute ahead of silver medallists Leeds City.
AFD’s James Dargan, with the equal fourth fastest time in the under-17 men’s contest, anchored Dan Shattock and Bertie Bruce-Gonzalez to fifth place. The club’s u15 girls also finished fifth when Lottie Quinn and Emmeline Orbell were anchored by Katie Pye who recorded the twelfth quickest time of the race. Tori Waller, Maya Jobbins (eleventh fastest) and Tilly Robertson (nineteenth fastest) were ninth in the u13 girls’ event.