REPORT BY: STEPHEN SPEAK

LAST Wednesday (January 29) Ermysted’s Grammar School Cross-Country team had a stellar performance at the Coventry Relays in the War Memorial Park.

Since 1972 King Henry VIII School in Coventry has hosted what is now regarded by many as the national Inter-Schools Cross Country Relay Race. Boys and girls compete in their own categories - the boys’ race being 6 x 2.3 miles - the girls’ race being 4 × 2.3 miles.

The course is completed over pavement, grass, woodland – and usually quite a few puddles – and is largely flat with no significant elevation.

Schools enter their best runners, regardless of their age, although this will usually include predominantly runners in the Sixth Form. The race has a strong legacy, boasting former competitors of the calibre of Seb Coe, Alastair and Jonathan Brownlee, and Richard Nerurkar.

Above ground conditions were nearly perfect with a cloudless sky and hardly a breath of wind, however, wet weather made the conditions underfoot in places very muddy, which meant fast times were not entirely possible.

Ermysted’s have a great crop of athletes at the moment with the school recently winning National Titles over the fells, however, this flat relay is a far cry from the mud and hills they are used to. The students had aspirations of a high single figure placing after finishing 4th overall last year.

Y12 student Ewen Wilkinson set off in determined fashion and was in a group chasing the lone leader at halfway but in the end came back 5th of the 60 or so teams.

Wilkinson ran Ermysted’s fastest time of the day, with leg one athletes being selected by their schools in hope of starting strongly.

Y12’s Tom Hooper was next, and he quickly lifted the team into the lead and even came back with a time cushion. It was now that the threat from behind became more evident as winners for the past four years, the Judd School from Kent, made their move.

They edged a little closer on the 3rd leg, but Will Oakden ran well to pass on a slight lead to fellow Y10 George Marsh on the 4th leg.

Judd did catch and even overtake Marsh, but he ran on well to keep Ermysted’s in contention. The last two stages saw Ermysted’s two oldest athletes, so the school still believed they had a fighting chance.

Head Boy, Lachlan Wills went out hard to try and close the gap and sure enough halved the deficit over the first mile, but Judd saved something in the tank and came back with roughly the same 30 second lead.

It was now that Cross-Country Captain and GB and England Fell Runner Sam Bentham took the baton. The pressure was on but so was the chance of glory and Bentham set off like a train.

He thrived on the early muddy section and caught the leader in the first half mile. However, back on the tarmac the two ran side by side as they disappeared from view for the final mile.

An incredibly tense wait was broken when some cheers of ‘Go on Sam!’ came ringing from the crowd and Ermysted’s hopes were lifted. Sure enough, Ermysted’s had a winning lead as he brought it home by about 15 seconds after nearly an hour and a half of running.

Ermysted’s ‘B’ Team of Samesh Chotai, Oliver Frew, Alex Frew, Sam Cheung, Ben Milward and Nathan Hird showed the strength in depth the school has as they were 20th overall team beating most of the other school’s ‘A’ Teams and being the second B Team home.