West District Cross Coutry Champs

WEST DIRTRICTS WERE TOUGH

On Saturday afternoon the cream of the West Coast of Scotland’s athletes converged to Inverkip near Greenock, as the West Districts Cross Country Championships took place at the venue for the first time.

Among the hundreds of runners taking part were some of Kilmarnock Harrier’s finest and as the day commenced at Under 13 Level it was clear that the mainly flat course by the Firth of Clyde was very, very tough. With people knee deep in muck a lot of the time, coupled with many hard rutty parts in places there was many a casualty with young Michael Dollard in particular being worse for wear at the end as he twisted his ankle on a pothole.

Nevertheless, there were some decent performances amongst the Junior athletes from –

Aiden Hesset, Jamie Neilson (Under 13 boys),

Caitlin McClounie (14^th Under 13 Girl),

Ben O’Neill, Angus Kerr (Under 15 Boys),

Clair Orr, Shona McBean, Lauren Park (Under 15 Girls),

Bronagh Wishart, Lorne Kerr (Under 17 Ladies)

Amanda Humes, Bethany Ross, Christine Irvine (Under 20 Ladies)

Cameron Mackie, Murray McDonald (Under 20 Men).

Soon after these races, the Senior events took place and in the Ladies field Kara Tait was top performer. Elite athlete Elspeth Curran of Kilbarchan was clear favourite for the title and this was justified as she took the honours fairly convincingly from Lesley Chisolm of Garscube.

Kara however wasn’t too far back and finished 7^th in a time of 24.22 for another good solid top 10 placing at District Level.

Paula Wilson has had injury woes of late and she too ran, being delighted to secure a top 30 placing and easily in the top half of the field in a time of 27.39 and onwards and upwards for her.

In the last event of the day, 200 Senior Men had the added challenge of running an additional part of the course a couple of times and this was to prove tough for all concerned.

Derek Hawkins, like Kilbarchan AAC Clubmate Elspeth Curran was hot favourite, and having just completed a 2.14 marathon recently in Frankfurt rightly so. Derek led from the gun and secured the title by a winning 22 second margin from Cambuslang athlete Wegene Tefese.

Big mentions however must go to Harrier Tony Rodden who completed his first Cross Country event at this level and certainly did himself justice with many athletes behind him. Well done to him, and all, young and not so young, who competed on such a tough day. Senior Men’s Times were –

44^th Scott Martin 40.51, 103^rd Stewart Ferguson 45.00, 110^th Connell Drummond 45.16, 139^th Leslie McDerment 47.56, 165^th Tony Rodden 50.34.