Gloucestershire Country XC - Malvern College - 14 December 2013

This was a new course at Malvern College and it immediately became apparent that there was a hill. A hell of a hill. It was a long, steady drag climbing for about 400 metres close to the start line, before running a short ridge before dropping back down.

Despite only having having four competitors this proved to be enough as the team (pictured) won on the day and increased their overall lead in the county series. Team captain Rachel Vines led the ladies round finishing in 12th place. She was shadowed from the start by Vicky Veness who finished in 13th. Amelia Mullins was third scorer in 25th with Claire Sansome anchoring the ladies in 82nd.

The result puts the ladies well on course to win the County League for the fourth time in the club’s short history.

The men’s team finished 6th and were led home by Andrew Jones in an excellent 19th place with captain Chris Driskell finding form to finish 24th. Then followed a trio of Striders with Rich Shardlow, Dave Smeath and JJ Willson finishing close together in 60th, 62nd and 63rd respectively. The finalA team scorer was James Coull in 83rd.

In the B Team David James was 144th, Andrew Paterson 157th, Dan Harte 169th and Gordon Bendall 171st.

Full results are available at the Glos AAA website</p>

---