Although the seniors’ bronze did not quite replicate their historic victory 10 years ago, a strong veterans’ quartet – which included two members of that winning 2016 squad – secured the island an alternative team gold at Southampton’s Fairthorne Manor. It was a third successive veteran men’s team gold.
Guernsey Athletics had entered Saturday’s event bogged down by a new rule that prevents athletes from representing clubs for which they are second-claim members, thereby preventing the UK-based Richard Bartram and Sammy Galpin from counting.
And so the Guernsey team could not capitalise on a strong 10th-place finish by Bartram, who overcame a stitch to post 37min. 57sec. over an 11.3km race held in crisp, cold winter sun and firm ground rather than the usual quagmire.
But senior debutant Jack Rees put behind him a pre-race injury scare to finish just another 25sec. and three positions down.
And Lee Merrien battled on after a mid-race hamstring injury to place 16th overall, with individual veterans’ gold to boot, in 38-51.
George Mason ducked under 40min. for 22nd overall as James Priest placed 26th, veteran Matt Jamieson 31st and Mikey Ingrouille 32nd to complete the scoring six.
Additionally, the efforts of Merrien and Jamieson combined with those of Chris Gillman (36th) and Michael Wilesmith (39th) for a dominant victory in the veterans’ team event.
Simon Ingrouille brought back a further gold with his individual placing in the V55s.
As the recently appointed Guernsey Athletics endurance team captain, Mikey Ingrouille heaped great praise on the squad.
‘I’m really proud of the team,’ the 24-year-old said.
‘It would have been really easy to get bogged down by the injuries and unfortunate rulings, but there was so much determination on display that we were able to achieve another team bronze with some brilliant individual performances along the way too.
‘It’s inspirational to see Lee soldier on through injury to secure individual glory and help the team.’
The team captain also highlighted the similarly ‘inspirational’ performance of Nix Dobson in making the top five overall senior women.
Racing a 8.9km distance, she quickly established herself in the top 10, showing good signs of backing up her previous best finishes on the course, having placed seventh on two occasions.
But she made further progress and soon settled in fifth. She maintained that to the line, clocking 34-40.
Senior debutant Eloise Scholes secured a top-10 finish of her own with 35-35.
Representing St Mary’s Richmond, London-based Bailiwick athlete Emma Etheredge finished 16th in 36-27.
Unfortunately, Guernsey were short of a full senior women’s team, and they could not count a strong individual performance from Eleanor Jamieson.
The much-improved Jamieson was among a small bunch of U20s racing the same course at the same time and, after finishing behind only City of Portsmouth’s Emma Smart, claimed an age-group silver.
The stand-out performance among the younger juniors came from Paul Friedrich edging gold in the U13 boys’ race.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.