Winter’s over for athletes – and Chichester end it with medals

Over the grounds of Christs Hospital School near Horsham, Chichester fielded 15 teams in the 11 age groups and, while not repeating the widescale success of some previous years, they still came away with three team and four individual medals.

It was the turn of the veterans and seniors to gain the majority of the club’s success.

Seniors and veterans

In the oldest of the 11 age groups the club’s over-60 men’s A team kept up their remarkable run of well over a decade of county success with a team silver, just deprived of outright success by a fast-finishing Brighton Phoenix team. Phoenix edged past them on the last lap to win by just 17 seconds after nearly 40 minutes of running.

The trio of Rob Wiggins, Dave Worcester and Dave Dorning have achieved multiple successes, first as an over-50 squad and in the past couple of years in the over-60 group, and have secured county medals every season.

Opening leg runner Rob Wiggins recorded the third fastest time of the day, 12min 33sec, for individual bronze.

In the women’s categories the over-50s are the most senior age group and Chichester’s Jane Harrop, Helen Dean and Amanda Godfrey equalled their male counterparts with team silver highlighting another scintillating run from Harrop in a time of 12.40 for the senior loop which is over 100m more than two miles.

Chichester’s B team of Sue Baker, Jill Renson and Sandra Nemorin-Noel finished a hard-earned sixth.

There was another great individual run from Jim Garland with an 11.10 clocking in the over-50 race as he led the race on the first lap running comfortably the fastest time by an over-50 by a margin of 16 seconds.

Fighting performances from Colin Harley and Dave Reading couldn’t quite keep Chichester in the medals and they had to settle for a close fifth.

One place lower were the over-40s in sixth with Gary Williams, Keith Akerman, Steve Davy and John Bullard all well inside 13 minutes.