Cross Country
School Cross Country has continued to go from strength to
strength this season and our local and national reputation has expanded. The
season consists of league races and relays against Tiffin, Trinity, Oxted and
Whitgift and races at some of most prestigious private schools in the country.
Juniors
The Junior Team, consisting of Year 7 and 8 runners have had
a strong season with a lot of runners competing for the first time. They have
consistently finished in the top 2 in League meets and the highlight was a
superb 2nd place finish at the prestigious Chaterhouse Meet.
Alfie Smith from Year
7 has run consistently well alongside Freddie
Georgiou and those 2 runners have regularly finished high up the field. James Parker, Ragu Arravinthan, Joseph
Roberts, Alex Romanowski and Jonas
Bekit have all shown massive improvement which bodes well for the future.
Year 8’s Peter Edwards, Luca Gerges,
Galvin Biju and Ethan Foley have all impressed this year and will look to continue
their form.
The Year 7s won their age group at the Sutton Schools
Championship with Alfie Smith
finishing in 1st place
Can Alfie Smith he now come forward to collect the Year 7
shield on behalf of the team.
Inters
The Inters, Year 9 and 10 runners, have had a very
encouraging season so far. They have won all but one of the league meets and
ran well at Charterhouse. They Inters finished in 3rd place in the
first round of the National Championships which was a great performance, though
just failed to qualify for the Regional Finals.
Harry Smith from Year
9 has excelled this year. He has won 4 out of 5 of the League meets as well as
running in several Senior Races. Jacob
Jones has been the most improved runner of the season and Gianluca
Ercolano, Joe Logue, Jude Watson
and Daniel Hodgson have all ran
well.
Seniors
There is one word to describe the senior cross country season
so far – dominant.
They have won every single league race. At the Kings
Trophy, one of the biggest senior races in the South West they finished in 5th
position which was a fantastic achievement.
Better was to follow at Charterhouse where a close 2nd
was achieved and at Lancing when Cross Country powerhouses Sevenoaks and Harrow
were beaten for John Fisher to claim 1st place.
The highlight of the season was the Haskell Cup at RGS
Guildford where 3rd place was achieved in this highly competitive
relay – the best result there in over a decade.
The Surrey Schools Championship saw 1st place
achieved with ease.
Ricky
Lutakome finished 1st in that race so can he come up and
receive the shield on behalf of the team
Availability has been excellent and all runners deserve
massive credit.
Ryan and
Alex Galvin have finished in the top 4 at every league event. John Erne and Fabien Daburn have been
consistent. Robert Spalding has
recovered from injury well to return to his best form of late, and Sean McAllister, Oscar and Joseph Halfacre have shown tremendous dedication and
loyalty.
The main man this season has however been Ricky Lutakome. He is 2 years younger than those he competes
against and yet has has finished 1st in every league race he
has run. He recorded the fastest leg at Guildford and was just 11 seconds away
from a 15-year old course record at Oxted – with 2 more years yet to run it. He
has serious talent and potential – watch this space!
The Athlete of the Year however goes to a runner who has not
only excelled at his own age group, but who has also run with distinction in
Senior races against runners 4 years older.
At the home relay at Plough Lane, he showed fantastic
sportsmanship in alerting the runner in front of him that he was going the
wrong way, preventing him from getting lost. He therefore gave up an
opportunity to take the lead but in doing so showed the character and values
that we here at John Fisher so admire.
Well done to Harry
Smith - athlete of the year.
Photos to follow
