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Oxford City Athletic Club

Oxford City juniors and seniors made a good start to the Oxford Mail season, with promising runs from all age groups on a cold, sunny but dry day at Newbury Racecourse Showground. In the first race of the day, Alex Garry was the first u9 boy to finish, while Ella Ramsay was first among the u9 girls. In her first race of any kind, Anna Griffiths finished as the 6th girl. In the under 11 girls race, Isabelle Martin was first, with Izzie Haines-Gray second, only four second behind. Emily Channon finished in 9th, only 26s behind the winner, to make up a great individual and team performance from Oxford.There were also excellent first time runs for Payton Carter, Maizie Neal, Dominique Dunn and Sienna Hardy. Well done to all the girls who took part – what a great sight it was to see so many Oxford girls running so well in their first races. For the under 11 boys Monty Salmon came home in 5th, with Louis Barron 20th, Henry Myers 33rd, Louis Griffiths 36th,  Euan Currie 37th, Benjamin Straughan 42nd, Ben Jackson 48th, James Nicolaou 61st, and Harry Cann 63rd out of 72 runners. Again it was brilliant to see so many Oxford boys running well in their first races. They all ran strongly, and with more experience will all improve on their individual placings. In the under 13 girls race Olivia Martin made it a family double for the Martins, with victory in 9.09s, 11s ahead of her nearest rival. Sadly there were no other under 13 girls running for Oxford, so for the next race we will have to encourage more of our excellent under 13s to run. Henry Channon won the under 13 boys race in 8.33, with new member Ben Sims in 5th (8.57s), and Lewis Currie and Freddie Jones close behind in 6th and 7th both recording a time of 9mins. Jonathan Davies finished in 27th place out of 40. In the under 15 girls race Holly Hunter finished 8th in 14.05 mins, with Ale Prince in 10th in 14.07, Grace Whitty 13th in 14.33, Emily Haines-Gray 19th in 15.16s and Beth Hunter 20th in 15.20s. Jamie Garry, our sole u17 girl, finished 3rd in a time of 13.43s. In the under 15 boys race, Ben Davies was 5th home in 17.25s, Louis Enskat was 13th in 18.50s and Jamie Scott was 15th in 19.00s. There were no under 17 boys. In the senior men’s race Simon Fisher was 3rd home, Tegs Jones was 3rd in the V35 age group, Dan Anderton was 20th in the senior men’s race, John Atyeo was 2nd in the V50 age group, while Brian Green was first in the V60 age group. In the Senior Women’s Race Lauren Hawtin was first home for Oxford in 6th place, with Sarah Davies close behind and 4th in the V35 age group, Gwyneth Hueter was 2nd in the V60 age group, and there were excellent runs from Rebecca Bolton and Liz Orchard in the senior and V35 age groups. As yet there are no team placings, but this is a great start for Oxford’s junors and seniors. We are waiting for an announcement about the venue for the 2nd round on Dec 3rd, and the 3rd round will be in Banbury on Jan 7th.

Thanks to Paul Kelsey for the photo. There are more photos on the OCAC Facebook page, and more of the seniors on Barry Cornelius’ site, which can be accessed via the Oxon X Country League website.