Nopesport

The M20 podium

The British Championships were held on the intricate hillside of Pwll Ddu in the Brecon Beacons, and the pre-race billing of a technical area certainly lived up to it’s British Championships status.

The shorter individual races remained in the intricate mine workings of Pwll Ddu, whilst the longer courses crossed the road to Blorenge where the terrain was a lot tougher whilst maintaining the technical standard. The technical standard showed with a number of top athletes struggling and losing time in the intricate moorland. The heat soared during the day and athletes were spotted having a number of drinks at the drinks stations to keep hydrated – particularly so on the M21E where even the leading athletes were out for an hour and a half.

Oli and Jenny Johnson made it another fantastic double, adding the British Elite Classic Championships titles to the JK titles they won less than a month ago. Oli was moving through the terrain very strongly, and caught 3 minutes on Duncan Archer on the long leg over the hill on Blorenge, and they soon caught Mike Sprot who had started a further 3 minutes ahead. The trio raced round together, although were still far from clean, and actually ended up finishing as the top 3 on they day such was the relentless pace they were setting, Oli winning in 86:03, Duncan 2nd in 88:33 and Mike 3rd in 91:56. There were also impressive runs from the 2 JWOC athletes from AIRE, with Joe Mercer running strongly for 5th place in front of a number of senior squad athletes, and 18 year old Hector Haines who ended up 10th.

Jenny’s winning margin was a lot more comfortable, over 7 minutes clear of her nearest rival showing just how fit she is at the moment. Karen Heppenstall was pleased with her 2nd place, just reward for concentrating on her foot-o this year, with Kirsty Bryan-Jones beating a number of GB senior squad athletes into 3rd place. Tess Hill, another Australia bound junior ran well to finish in 5th place. The W21E race was slightly marred by the misplacing of a control on the far side of the area which affected a number of athletes. A few of the women eventually found the control in the possession of the controller who was moving the control to the correct place. A protest was put in, although the athletes did so not to get the course voided, more to make a point that their runs had been affected by this matter. The decision was made to remove the leg from the results.

David Schorah was winner of the M20E by a rather convincing 13 minutes, slightly more than the margin between 1st and 2nd on M55L – Andy Hemsted beating Axel Blomquist by just 1 second!

Full Results