Cambridgeshire create history at UK CAU Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships

Cambridgeshire have created history at the UK CAU Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships in Loughborough.

For the first time in the 94-year history of the event, the county earned a team win at Prestwold.

The under-20 men’s squad of Oliver Newman, Thomas Keen, Nicolas Harhalakis, Conall McGinness, Isaac Ellard, David Dow and James Orrell took top spot.

With the scores of the team’s first four runners counting, Newman was seventh, Keen was ninth, Harhalakis was 10th and McGinness was 32nd, with all four athletes coached by Mark Vile at Cambridge & Coleridge AC.

It gave them a total of 58 points. Kent were second with 78 and Yorkshire third with 79.

“It is a great achievement for, in athletics terms, a small county but there has been a great improvement within the county over the last few years,” said Derek Darnell, the Cambs cross country team manager who was in charge for the first time at the Inter Counties competition.

“It will be great to continue to build on the improvement shown under my predecessor.

“The four young men that formed the scoring team train together at the track in Cambridge and performed well in the good quality, national standard, field of runners.”

There were also top 20 finishes for Isaac Rothwell, who was 18th in the under-15 boys’ race in 15min 15sec, and Tim Harrison, who was 20th in the senior men’s race in 40.12.