After snow and ice forced cancellations of the first senior league races of the year, cross country was back with a wet and muddy bang at the Midland Championships at Mallory Park in Leicestershire.
The high performing Under 17 Women once again took team gold with all three scoring runners securing top ten finishes.
Lucy Hellingsworth finished fourth, Ffion Collins seventh and Poppy Dunlop ninth.
And there were top twenty finishes for Jessica Dale, who was seventh in the Under 20 Women’s race and for Alex Taylor, who was fifteenth in the Under 20 men’s race.
The senior men’s team finished in tenth, with Matt Wilkinson Jr first back in 67th place.
Dan Tsegay was initially not included in the team results so we await any revisions to the results to see if there is any improvement in Halesowen’s position.
The ladies team placed eleventh with Louise Collins leading the way in 30th place.
Here’s all the Halesowen results with athlete photos where available:
UNDER 13 GIRLS (62 runners)
29 Grace Follows 12:31
UNDER 15 BOYS (55 runners)
20 Toby Sykes 13:55
UNDER 15 GIRLS (57 runners)
29 Izabella Fereday 16:38
36 Isabelle Wilkinson 16:49
UNDER 17 MEN (65 runners)
52 Ed Bates 21:47
UNDER 17 WOMEN (40 runners)
1st out of 7 complete teams: 20 points
(3 to score)
4 Lucy Hellingsworth 18:53
7 Ffion Collins 19:16
9 Poppy Dunlop 19:23
UNDER 20 MEN (31 runners)
15 Alex Taylor 28:34
UNDER 20 WOMEN (19 runners)
7 Jessica Dale 24:02
SENIOR MEN (207 runners)
10th out of 12 complete teams: 719 points
(6 to score)
Approx 7.1 miles
67 Matt Wilkinson Jr 48:02
89 Ethan Jordan 50:10
102 Dan Tsegay 51:23
129 Mark Hadley 55:29
137 David Lewis 56:41
146 Carl Follows 58:13
151 Alex Morgan 58:41
153 Phill Scarr 59:12
159 Bill Nock 1:00:09
167 James Ludlow 1:01:45
179 Mo Cusworth-Yafai 1:04:07
181 Rick Cudworth 1:04:30
186 Andy Nock 1:06:05
SENIOR WOMEN (137 runners)
11th out of 17 complete teams: 274 points
(4 to score)
Approx 4.6 miles
30 Louise Collins 33:59
63 Mel Hepke 37:38
87 Sally Spencer 41:32
94 Rachel Webster 43:06
Here’s a link to the chip-timed results from FR Systems:
The Derby Runner Midland Counties Cross Country Championships 2026
Thanks go to everyone who supported the team on the day, including Ali Grant and Mo Cusworth-Yafai, who provided the minibus.
Finally, here’s a couple of videos from the High Performance Runner page on Facebook.
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