Aldershot Farnham & District’s Katie Pye, last year’s under 17 women’s champion, became the u20’s champion when she ran in this year’s South of England Cross Country Championships at Beckenham on Saturday. The Great Britain junior international beat Ella Davey of Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow, second fastest at the English cross country relays, by fifteen seconds.
Poppy Guest was the closest any other athlete from AFD came to an individual gold medal when she shared the same time as the winner, Summer Smith of Brentwood Beagles in the u15 girls’ race. The silver medallist was backed by Naomi Walmsley, eighteenth, Harriet Robertson, 38th, and Kitty Dover, 66th, for her club’s bronze medals in the team competition.
There were four sets of team golds for AFD on a day when no other club took more than two sets of any colour. Matt Pickering was another individual silver medallist when he was runner up to Cosmo Benyan of Cambridge & Coleridge in the u20 men’s event. Owen Smith, seventh, Luca Hamblen, ninth, and William Smith, fifteenth, combined with Pickering for the team victory,
Isabel Goodey de Diego was two seconds away from an individual medal when finishing fourth and leading Koko O’Neill, ninth, Emily Walmsley, tenth, and Evie Jones, fourteenth, to AFD’s gold in the u13 girls’ race. Maddie Jordan-Lee, sixth, Katie Hughes, seventh, Millie Jordan-Lee eighth, and Katriona Brown, 24th, were the club’s gold medallists in the senior women’s race. Katie McBride was tenth, Otelia Garcia Davis eleventh, Katie Ealden 21st, and Tilly Robertson 36th for victory in the u17 women’s.
AFD’s senior men were silver medallists in the only event requiring six counters. They also provided the individual silver medallist when Callum Charleston led home Sam Eglen, fifth, Tom Chandler, eleventh, Rian McCawley, 21st, Liam Stone, 39th, and Alex Matthews, 60th.