Swindon Harriers athletes secured a glorious hat-trick of golds at the 2025 Wiltshire Schools Cross Country Championships.

Finley Byrne, Elsie Scrase and Pippa Wall all booked their places in the county team for the South West Schools Championships in Newquay next month with thrilling sprint finishes at the Sheldon School venue in Chippenham.

Each won out in head-to-head clashes with their fellow clubmates as Swindon Harriers runners demonstrated their skill in the county competition to bring home a whole host of medals.

Byrne kept his cool to ease by clubmate Jesse Bryant to win the junior boys’ race, Scrase won a fantastic tussle with Charissa Griffiths-Clack in the junior girls event and Wall out-kicked her training partner Bethany Brien to lift the minor girls title.

In addition to those three golds and three silvers, club runners also won two bronzes again in both junior races as the Swindon kids dominated the podium with James Mayneord and Freya McMeeking completing the medal sets as they locked out the podium places in those races.

To underline the club’s strength in the junior age groups Ellie Charlesworth was fourth in the girls’ event while Max Jackson, Douglas Kirby and Olly Hughes placed fifth, sixth and eighth respectively in the boys’ age group to qualify for the South West championships.

There was a strong contingent from the club in the inter-boys race with Matthew Hunton running boldly to finish fourth ahead of Ben Charlesworth in fifth. Alex Leak and David Kowalski also made the top ten.

On the team front, Swindon Schools won both junior races and the minor girls age group with a silver for the inter boys and bronze for the minor boys in what was an overwhelmingly strong weekend for the whole club in the competition.

Meanwhile, in Spain, track specialist Matt Woodward showed his winter training is going well by smashing his personal best in the Valencia 10-kilometre race in Eastern Spain as he clocked a time of 31 minutes and 50 seconds – slashing over six minutes from his previous high watermark which he set in 2017.

There were also personal bests for Isaac McAdam (32:38) and Ben McIntyre (34:08) while Harry Woods (33:38) and Simon Dill (35:02) as they also made the trip to compete in the race out in Spain, making it a very successful event all round for the Harriers athletes as they continue their winter programmes.