Duck wins Northern title as Hallamshire take team prize

Claire Duck (Leeds City) won the women's race with Hallamshire taking the team title at the Northern Cross Country Championships at Blackburn on Saturday.
Susan Partridge.Susan Partridge.
Susan Partridge.

In the men’s race Leeds City were runners-up behind Salford.

Duck was superb, taking an early lead and never looked like losing, making light of the very heavy conditions and a strong, icy wind, even a snow storm. The course is a tough one at the best of times and it was a sterner test than many of the runners had ever encountered.

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The 30-year-old Leeds runner was always marked out as a contender – she was sixth last year and is Yorkshire champion – but this was her best ever run. She has improved consistently under the guidance of Leeds ex-international Mike Baxter and must now have a real chance of a medal in the national Championships at the end of this month.

Her Leeds team-mate Susan Partridge was fifth but there was no back-up for the Leeds team.

Hallamshire’s win was unexpected but well deserved, led by Hatti Archer in sixth place. Former winner of this race before she had her first child, Archer’s comeback was interrupted by an injury in August and she had not raced since then.

Showing that there is no substitute for class, Archer ran strongly throughout, inspiring her Hallamshire team-mates. Lizzie Adams, 18th, was crucial to the Hallamshire win.

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She has raced sparingly in recent months although she has kept her hand in with some wins on the fells.

Like Archer, she is a former Northern winner and always a formidable competitor in these conditions.

Zantha Wray (20th) and Hannah Fletcher (26th) both ran superbly to complete the Hallamshire team and secure a comfortable margin over Vale Royal with defending champions Rotherham in third place.

Charlie Hulston (Sale) won the men’s race.

Leeds City were led by Carl Smith, 10th, and although they packed their six counters in the top 55 places in a field of over 700, they could not match Salford and only just beat the Hallamshire team led by Steve Bayton, 9th.

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At junior level (under-20) there was a runaway win for Abbie Donnelly (Lincoln Wellington) in the women’s race with Jonathan Shields (City of Sheffield) finishing runner-up in the men’s race, whilst in the under-17 age group there was silver for Alice Moore (Barnsley AC) and bronze for Cameron Bell (Hallamshire).

The very consistent Josh Cowperthwaite (Middlesbrough AC) was an impressive winner of the under-15 boys race.

The youngest age group saw two outstanding performances. Tommy Dawson (Leeds City) was 39 seconds ahead of runner-up Scott Nutter (Barnsley AC) spread-eagling the field from the start, an outstanding run, whilst Eve Jones (Skyrac) looked to be gliding over the mud as she won the girls race by 19 seconds in her first year in the age group. Jodie Hill, third, led Hallamshire to a team win.

Olympic champion Jenn Suhr broke her own indoor pole vault world record at a meeting in the United States on Saturday.

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The 33-year-old American cleared 5.03 metres at the Golden Eagle Multi and Invitational in Brockport, New York state, world governing body the IAAF announced in a statement.

The height marked a one-centimetre improvement on Suhr’s previous record, set in March 2013.

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