Invicta East Kent Athletics Club trio selected for World Cross Country Championships after success at UK Inter-Counties
by Alex
Hoad
Three Invicta East Kent AC girls have been selected to represent
Great Britain at the World Cross Country Championships in Poland
later this month after stunning performances at the UK
Inter-Counties Championships in Birmingham.
Rebecca Weston, Alex Clay and Bobby Clay (pictured) competed in
an event which not only formed the under-20 Inter-Counties
Championships but was also the World Cross Country Championship
trials and the final race of the McCain UK Cross Country
Challenge.
For the Clay sisters, from Wingham, it was a step-up from their
under-17 age-group, while 15-year-old Bobby was seeking more
top-level experience and entered the race with nothing to lose.
The sisters and Weston, from Rough Common, joined the leading
pack from the off and Bobby Clay eventually broke away with
seven-time inter-counties champion Emilia Gorecka of Aldershot and
Farnham.
Despite a huge age, size and experience gulf between the two,
Clay matched the champion stride for stride before Gorecka’s class
told and she broke clear in the closing stages.
Gorecka won the race in 19mins 41secs with Clay second in 20.07
and Weston fifth (20.32) with Alex Clay a further five seconds back
in sixth place to help Kent claim team gold in the inter-counties
championships.
The trio will form half of the GB team in the under-20 race at
the World Cross Country Championships to be held in Bydgoszcz on
March 24.
Invicta EK will have 13 representatives at the English Schools
National Cross Country Championships at Catton Hall, Derbyshire, on
Saturday.
Alex Clay along with Emily McKane will take on the senior girls
while Bobby Clay, Amy Old, Lilly Coward, Abigail Fox and Anna
Weston will contest the intermediate girls’ race.
14/03/13
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