Advisa Hepburn Oracle Junior XC
The Jersey Spartan Athletic Club are pleased to announce that the Advisa Group are going to sponsor the Advisa Group Cross Country Series for a sixth consecutive year. The series will consist of seven races with runners accumulating points in each race with the top four scores counting for the overall series winners. At the end of the series which will be presented at the final event which is a four team relay.
The first race took part last Saturday at La Braye sand dunes by Mont a la Brune. After the squally showers of late the runners were presented with a fine afternoon although a sea mist was present by the end of the races The course was a one kilometre anticlockwise loop of the dunes with the runners finishing back at the start. The continued sponsorship from Advisa has seen the series increase in popularity and with the change in the weather saw a record 102 runners complete the course..
The first race underway was the 7-8 age categories. In this race the runners completed one loop of the course with the girls starting two minutes after the boys and the races being treated as separate. The start saw a mass stampede of 22 boys but they managed to avoid falling. There were at least ten runners in with a chance of winning until quite close to the finish. Freddie Lucas sped from the bunch near the finish just winning by four seconds from Corey Heath and Owen Graham. The girl’s race was the most exciting of the day with Elizabeth Atkinson and Grace Butler running side by side for the whole race. Both girls crossed the line together with Grace gaining the verdict by one second. There was just an exciting finish for third place with Hannah Worth pipping Mia Pirouet and Olivia Bousteler with only two seconds separating the three runners. This age saw the largest entry with thirty six runners completing the course.
In the 9-10 age group the runners completed two laps of the course. Eighteen boys and seventeen girls started the race which was the second largest entry. Oliver Rothwell won an exciting race by just beating Jakob Stanton by four seconds. George Daniels was third. Just as closely Lucy Hunt also beat Elissa Polak with Ellie Boustouler just edged into third by one second.
The last race of the day was the 11-14 age group with the runners completing three laps of the dunes. Again there was a record finish with thirty one runners finishing the race. Jack Kennedy had a close tussle with Isaac Du Val in the 11-12 boys’ age group as they ran neck for the first two laps only for Jack to pull away on the third lap to win by seventeen seconds. Peter Holmes ran a comfortable race for third place. In the girls’ 11-12 age group Florence Gothard won convincingly from Cleo Leather and Jennifer Cullen. In the older age group three boys were locked together for one lap with Samul Maher leading Ollie Turner and Barnaby Zaman. On the second lap Ollie and Barnaby started to lose touch and fell away for second and third place. In the girls’ race Yasmine Lookess won comfortably from Isobel Atkinson and Natasha Polak.
After the race Advisa Group medals were given to the first three home in each age group and lucky race numbers were drawn for four pairs of cinema ticket spot prizes.
