Trying again on the wealthy historical past of the English Nationwide Cross Nation Relays

Going down on Saturday November 2 this yr, the favored occasion has a long-standing historical past that started in 1985

This weekend marks the thirty eighth version of the Saucony English Cross Nation Relays, an occasion that first happened in 1985 with solely under-17 males, junior and senior males collaborating.

Initially held at Crystal Palace Park and returning to the identical venue in 1987, the relays discovered a everlasting house at Berry Hill Park in Mansfield in 1989.

That very same yr additionally noticed the introduction of girls’s classes, increasing the participation considerably and at the moment athletes throughout all age teams from under-13 by way of to senior males can compete.

This yr, on the thirty eighth anniversary of the occasion, greater than 1000 groups are entered over the ten races with 187 within the senior males’s occasion and 132 within the senior girls’s.

AW Archive 2019

Happily, Berry Hill Park remains to be out there for this occasion, as there have been issues about its future in recent times.

Final yr, for instance, constructing work adjoining to the outdated clubhouse buildings meant the course needed to be altered and the organisers needed to remove the necessity for barely shorter opening laps in all races.

Cambridge & Coleridge AC received the senior males’s title in 2023, due to a powerful efficiency from world cross nation bronze medallist Thomas Eager, with Callum Elson ending the race to safe the membership’s first nationwide males’s title.

Tom Eager, Jonathan Escalante-Phillips, Jack Grey, Callum Elson (Mark Shearman)

In the meantime, Belgrave Harriers triumphed within the senior girls’s race, led by a powerful begin from Kate Axford.

College of Birmingham received the junior girls’s race, whereas Aldershot, Farnham & District took the junior males’s title.

Paris Olympian Phoebe Gill, 17, helped St Alban’s safe victory within the under-17 girls’s race, and Chelmsford AC will search to defend their title within the under-17 males’s race after final yr’s win.

Phoebe Gill (Mark Shearman)

With a central venue accessible to many golf equipment, the environment guarantees to be thrilling with easy organisation and a packed 10-race schedule.

The numerous methods utilized by completely different groups creates an exhilarating competitors, as a number of athletes usually lead all through the assorted legs of the race.

Athletes will deal with the ‘tight and twisty’ course, overlaying laps of 2km for youthful age teams and as much as 5km for the senior males.

READ MORE: AW’s classic protection from 1945 to the current day

The relays additionally function a build-up to the British Athletics Cross Problem occasions in Cardiff and Liverpool this November.

Athletes shall be trying to guide their spots on the GB group for the European Cross Nation Championships, with trials being held on the Liverpool occasion.

Timetable – Saturday November 2
10.45am Junior girls (3×2.5km)
10.57am U17 girls (3×2.5km)
11.26am U13 boys (3x2km)
11.50am U13 ladies (3x2km)
12.15pm Junior males (3x3km)
12.40pm U17 males (3x3km)
1.06pm U15 ladies (3x2km)
1.30pm U15 boys (3x2km)
1.50pm Senior girls (3x3km)
2.40pm Senior males (4x5km)

AW Archive 2014

Look out for protection of this weekend’s 2024 occasion on our web site. You can too discover all of our unique protection from the Nationwide Cross Nation Relays, relationship again to 1985, by way of the Athletics Weekly archive.

From the primary ever difficulty in December 1945 by way of to the current day, present subscribers to our journal are in a position to dip into this useful resource free of charge whereas non-subscribers pays simply £3.99 monthly for full entry.

Did you compete on this occasion prior to now and need to dig out your outdated outcomes? Subscribe to our archive right here.

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