Ethan battles it out at the Northerns and great indoor performances

Two members of Bury AC made the journey to Pontefract Race Course on Saturday to compete in North of England Cross Country Championships. The first to compete was Ethan Statham, running in the under 13 boys race held over two miles of the course. Ethan was always up with the leaders and was part of a large battle for places over the closing stages of the race. For context, only 10 seconds separated the 6^th place finisher from the 16^th, with Ethan placing 11^th in the scramble with 11.29. Unfortunately Ethan had had to compete in a schools race just two days before the championships and undoubtedly the after effects were in his legs in the finishing stages otherwise a top ten finish would have been a very realistic outcome for him. Given the field contained 125 competitors Ethan should be justifiably proud of his placing. In the senior mens race over 7.5 miles Anthony Hallahan was the club’s sole competitor. He ran strongly to place 217^th in the field of nearly 350 competitors stopping the clock at 53.33.

The previous Sunday saw 6 members of the club compete at Sportcity in the Manchester Indoors Open Meeting. Jemima Miles placed third in the under 20s 60m hurdles in 9.67. In the under 20s 60m Matthew Wheatley continued showing excellent form with a win in 7.08. Luke Drinnan, running in the next race was first under 20 with an impressive 7.49. The two raced again over 200m, with Matthew taking the win with 23.15 and Luke third in 24.91. Matilda Nott also ran over 200m in the under 15 age category. She demonstrated that she is running into fine form ahead of the English Championships with a win in 26.34. Ethan Statham competed over 600m and up an age group in the under 15s and took an excellent third place with 1.38.28. In the pole vault competition Solmon Evans was first under 15 with 2.20.