Athletic: Hadfield's 12-year winning streak ends

CONVINCING WIN: Henry Gay (centre) upset favoured runners to lead his Grey House to victory in the junior boys event.PHOTO/ROB VAN DORT IMG-7585

The longest winning run in Collegiate sport - perhaps in Wanganui sport - ended last Thursday on the Collegiate Cross Country course when Grey House won the Inter-House Cross Country, ending Hadfield's 12-year winning sequence.

Hadfield House, however, did not relinquish the championship easily. They won the standards division which rewards all runners but slipped to third in the teams' event, allowing a well-organised Grey House to take the title.

Grey were the last name on the trophy other than Hadfield, winning the trophy in in 2001.

One Grey runner set a record of his own. North Island Schools Hammer Silver medal-winner Sam Donald has run every year on the same course since he joined St George's as a 5-year-old.

Donald ran his first cross country on the course in the first year of Hadfield's winning sequence. He will be no doubt delighted that he will not have to run next year and can reflect at university on the hard slog over 13 years on the course.

But he can be satisfied with the hard-earned two-point standard that helped his house to the historic win.

The individual championships largely went by the form book. Geordie Beamish was in majestic form winning the event by nearly 2 minutes in what was a best performance over the course. He has three weeks until he faces the challenge of trying to emulate his brother, Hugo, in winning a New Zealand title, which is perhaps one of the hardest events in New Zealand as runners have to be at their best on the day that matters.

Alice Bird (Senior Girls) also won by a large margin and looked remarkably fresh at the finish and as a first year at New Zealand Schools could be among the top 20.

The Intermediate Boys' went to Christian Conder, who had finished second to Beamish at the Wanganui Championships.

Conder will have a vital part to play as a team member at New Zealand Schools and the challenge will be for a third runner to get close enough to the leading pair to influence a team result in Palmerston North.

Jane Lennox predictably won the Junior Girls with a time that would have placed her second in the senior competition.

This bodes well for this outstanding young runner as she still has two years nationally in the Junior grade.

Emma Abraham, who is still in Year 9, took third in the event with Ruby Redmayne sandwiched between the two.

Abraham will run in the Year 9 grade at NZ Schools and Redmayne will join Lennox in the Junior Girls' team. Again the challenge will be to find the third runner to mount a team challenge.

The Junior Boys' produced one of the best races of the day. Henry Gay led his Grey House team to a convincing win and in the process finished ahead of Kieran Carter and Thomas Conder, both of whom had finished in front of him at Wanganui Schools. They will combine as a strong Under 16 team at NZ Championships with the runner-up in the Intermediate grade Luke Gemmell.

Later in the month, I will preview the NZ Schools Cross Country, which is the largest national cross country event.