Highest ever finish in Birmingham XC League for BRAT men’s team.
The final league race of the season took place in Leamington with conditions underfoot at Newbold Comyn soft and wet in the extreme. Despite missing a number of our leading runners, we scored 244 to finish 6th on the day and end the season in a hugely impressive 5th place out of the 16 teams. This is our best ever season’s finish in Div 1 (previous best finishing positions were 6th in 1991/92 season as Rowheath Harriers, and 6th again in 2012/13 as BRAT).
So although we had hoped to go a bit better it was still a great end to the campaign; to finish in the top five in this company is no mean feat. The A team scorers on the day were Henry Brocklehurst 12, Chris Pickering 13, Will McKemey 38, Dan Shepherd 43, Ben Carrington 65, Dan Dalmedo 73. Great running guys!
The B team had an amazing day to finish 2nd and end the season in 3rd place in the B team table. Scorers on the day were Thanos Tsolakis 74, Matt Pollard 75, Mark Lawlor 94, Nick Lewis 103, Rob Vaughan 107, Jake Williamson 111. Tremendous result guys!
Good supporting runs also by Paul Jolliffe 118, Ben Beaumont 138, James Corden 152, Stuart Pearson 158, Richard Stringfellow 170, Richard Gray 183, Huw Jones 185, Martin Ludford 208, David Sansom 216, Sandeep Dhami 217.
Full results with times are at:
Well done to everyone who ran or supported at Leamington, there was a great atmosphere around the tent as usual (until it blew away at the end!). Special mention to Richard Carney who was on duty organising the officials at the finish.
Photos of the both the men’s and women’s races thanks to Toby Gosnall are available on the Club flickr site.
And a final big thank you to everyone who has run, supported or helped in any way over the course of the season, it was brilliant to be back racing again after the enforced lay off last season and we have made massive progress in our first season back in the top division.
ML
Final league table standings below:
1 University of Birmingham 281
2 Loughborough Students 726
3 Tipton Harriers 751
4 Birchfield Harriers 771
5 BRAT Club 863
6 University of Warwick 1253
7 Worcester AC 1344
8 Rugby&Northampton AC 1466
9 Coventry Godiva Harriers 1517
10 City of Stoke AC 1566
11 Wolverhampton&Bilston 1779
12 Newcastle (Staffs) AC 1875
13 Gloucester AC 1906
14 Leamington C & AC 2062
15 Knowle&Dorridge RC 2512
16 Cheltenham&County 3120