Emily Thompson won her first regional Cross-Country Championships on Saturday with a hard-fought win at the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Cross-Country Championships, staged at Eton in Berkshire. Facing most of the leading U15 competitors from both the Chiltern League and the Oxford Mail Cross-Country League, she produced another excellent, tactically astute run in difficult conditions to take the Gold medal by just one second from her Oxford Mail rival, Izzy Fry of Newbury.
The course was waterlogged after several days of heavy rain and the conditions proved a challenge from the start. On the starter's gun, Thompson slipped in the mud and was left to pick herself up and start from the back of the pack. She swiftly regained position, moving up through the field of 70 competitors, to be on the shoulder of the leader, Izzy Fry, by the mid-point in the 4k race. With 1k to go, Thompson sensed Fry slowing and made her move, establishing a 10 metre lead. The final 500m of the race was a real battle of speed and determination between the two girls, with Fry giving everything she had to close the gap, but Thompson equally determined to maintain her lead. Thompson crossed the line with the gap over Fry still intact to claim the well-deserved win.
By Richard Thompson.
