Chichester athletes have day to savour on Parliament Hill as Alex Yee joins in the fun

After last year’s enforced postponement, there was a real sense of anticipation with individual and team prizes up for grabs.

There was much to cheer as Sussex athletes continued their rich vein of form gaining top three placings in both under-13 races.

Chichester athletes played their part in no uncertain fashion and set club records in the two oldest men’s events both for individuals and teams.

Under-17s

The under-17 girls who were first to race, meaning an early alarm call for runners and supporters alike.

Sussex cross country in pictures.

Chichester were at full strength and were one of few clubs in the country to field six runners in this age group.

Any position in the top couple of hundred in these championships is hard fought and Cerys Dickinson led the squad home in 169th with Isabelle Isitt 206th, Amy Peters 230th and Marcie Faggeter 234th to bring their scoring four in 17th position, second Sussex club after county champions Crawley.

Useful back-up was provided by Tamsin Anelay in 242nd and Gemma Appleton in 253rd to round off a fantastic season after a clean sweep of Sussex medals in the relays, league and championships.

Under-15s

Five Sussex clubs fielded full teams with county champions Lewes a fine fourth in the team rankings.

Tone Zone Runners rack up fine finishes.

Brighton & Hove were 22nd with Chichester beating both Brighton Phoenix and Crawley to be third Sussex team on the day and 33rd in the country.

There was a good race to be first Chichester scorer with Carrie Anelay just getting the better of Florence Ingram in 149th and three places ahead of her team mate.

Anya Barrett was close behind in 215th with Millie Isitt 240th . Illness and injury robbed the club of a team in the under-15 boys’ race but Ben Ward gained great experience in his first national race to finish 184th.

Under-13s

The Chichester boys had good strength and produced a fine team result to finish 27th in one of the most competitive junior races.

The club’s highest ever individual position was in 2003 when Chris West finished sixth and the now 31-year-old was in the senior team nearly 20 years later.

This time Matthew Mainwaring and Stanley Wilkes were well inside the top 100 and brought themselves to second and second in the club rankings.

Mainwaring had his best run of the season to finish 40th just behind the Brighton & Hove Sussex medallist trio. Wilkes was 72nd in a race where a few seconds can mean dozens of places won or lost.

Two runners making their first appearances on the national stage were Kai Lendrum and Harry Cruttenden, who stuck to their task and finished 290th and 310th respectively.

Recent West Sussex West schools winner Molly Smithers was 118th in the under-13 girls’ race where Brighton Primary school pupil Katherine Haslip once again made

heads turn by just being pipped for an astounding win by one second.

Under-20s and seniors

There was much to celebrate in the senior races with Chichester’s menachieving their highest ever individual position at this event plus the best ever team placing.

There was a new club record in the under-20 men’s race and the club senior women’s record holder was very near her own best placing.

In the senior women’s race Edinburgh-based hospital doctor Beth Garland ran a well-judged race to finish 42nd and be tied on time as the first Sussex runner home with Eileen Beach from Hastings AC.

Garland was well up with the leading pack from the start on a course which had been trampled by thousands of feet beforehand on ground made a mudbath in places after heavy overnight rain. It was only over the last part of the 8k course where Garland had to give ground to her rivals.

The rest of Chichester’s senior team were from the veteran ranks with Elizabeth Robinson and Nadia Anderson running stride by stride virtually the whole way to finish 553rd and 563rd.

Sue Baker, recent Sussex over-60 league medallist completed the scoring in 941st while Wendy Whelan made the top 1000 in 989th place as probably the oldest competitor in the race aged 73.

Ned Potter lined up in the under-20 race here and faced a number of his university rivals. Potter recorded a fine ninth place at the finish and the first Chichester runner to gain a top 10 placing in this age group, eclipsing the 16th place of Joe Foreshew way back in 1997. Potter also has the honour of being easily the first Sussex runner home.

Chichester’s senior men thought they had a chance of beating the club’s best ever team placing of 65th, set in the early 1990s, but knew that a bad run could cost hundreds of places in a field of over 2000.

Leading the charge was Harry Leleu who was well inside the top 50 after the first mile. He moved through the field to finish a magnificent 29th, well inside the previous club best of Chris Zablocki from 2016, the highst Sussex placing of the day.

In-form veteran Mike Houston was next in 237th, with Ben Morton 324th in his first senior national championships. Conrad Meagher ran well in 554th with Chris West 983rd and club chairman Jim Garland 1378th for a placing of 48th, beating their previous best. Three further veterans Steve Davy in 1452nd, Tim Brown 1869th and Peter Dunne in 2026 completed the squad.

To cap the day, the men’s team met Leleu’s housemate at Loughborough, double Olympic medalist Alex Yee, who anchored GB to team gold in the inaugural triathlon mixed relay in Tokyo.