Report by David Griffiths
Sarah Astin came out with a great performance in the Cross Cup de Hannut cross-country international in Belgium at the weekend.
Representing England, Sarah finished in ninth place in the 8,000-metres senior women's race in a field of 53, which contained a number of very high-class athletes.
She was the third British athlete to finish behind Megan Keith who was third and Amelia Quirk who was sixth.
Sarah was only six seconds away from fifth place in the race won by an athlete from Eritrea.
Report from English Cross Country Association
We sent four teams to Hannut in Belgium this weekend to the competitive meeting there. It was a wintry scene and difficult (but it is cross country) conditions.
In the U20 races we had two wins with Luke Birdseye winning the U20 men’s race from Jacob Deacon in 2nd, James Dargan in 4th and Daniel Maydew in 12th.
A relative newcomer, the impressive, Innes Fitzgerald convincingly won the Ladies U20 race from Rebecca Flaherty in 2nd and Hattie Ryeynolds in 4th.
The Senior Ladies were led home by Amelia Quirk in 6th, Sarah Astin was 9th, Lauren McNeill 10th with Alex Millard 11th.
The Senior Men’s team were depleted to 3 runners when Ellis Cross lost a shoe and was unable to recover and get back into the race, Ned Potter was first home for England in an excellent 5th place, Joe Wigfield 8th and the last minute call up Jack Gray 17th.
Our next journey is to Diest, again in Belgium, so we can expect tough competition and probably tough conditions.
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