NWLL – Horsenden Hill – Sat 26 Sep 2015

We celebrated the 50th anniversary of the North West London cross country league at Horsenden Hill on Saturday, the final 4.7km race including adults who had run in the league during their younger days. Despite the occasion and the glorious warm weather, it was in other respects a low-key start to the season for the club.

One of the highlights was John Fielding’s victory in the U17 men’s race by over half a minute (see photo). Backed up by Luke Adar in fifth and Alex Suntong in 12th, the team finished second to Trent Park. Laura Stewart defied a heavy cold to finish third in the corresponding U17 girls’ race, followed by Roisin Lynch in tenth. The club was not alone in lacking a full team, and finished a respectable third.

In the U15 category, the girls also placed third. Lucy O’Brien led them home in third, with good mid-field packing from Cameron Thomas, Anisa Ibrahim and Zoe Crown. The U15 boys finished sixth, with Ilyes Iman finishing first after a battle with Naoki Kanai. Jonathan Martin followed half a minute later, backed up by Sudeys Hersi and Davide Lamagna.

The U13 boys finished ninth, with Matteo Lamagna first scorer, followed in close succession by Mikey Kouwiloyan and Mahiis Hersi. Younger brother Najiib completed the line-up. Fiona Coutts was the club’s only representative in the U13 girls’ race.

In the U11 category, Finn Combe finished well up the field in his first cross country for the club, while Amelie Canniff and Elsie Innes also made their cross country debuts in the corresponding girls’ race.

There are plenty of great photos on the club Facebook page, thanks to Armando Lamagna. As ever, the officials and marshals did a sterling job, and a big thank you is due to Phil York for the time-consuming work involved in marking out the various courses with all those posts and flags… then taking them all down again.