Hercules Wimbledon AC round-up: Women excel at Surrey Masters Cross Country Championships

BY TOM POLLAK

Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club’s older women achieved a hat-trick of individual wins in the Surrey Masters Cross Country Championships in Nonsuch Park.

Heading the golden treble was Gina Galbraith, who won the women’s over-45 6.3km title in 24:15 seconds to lead the team to silver medals. Former walking international Estle Viljoen, third over-50 finisher in 26:52, and Helen Davies, fourth over 50 in 27:48, completed the medal-winning trio.

Lisa Thomas, over-55 winner in 25:31 and Anna Garnier, top over-65 finisher in 29:38, were the other Hercules Wimbledon individual gold medallists. Five of the six runners in the women’s race came away with individual medals with three also picking up team medals.

Best of the nine Hercules runners in the men’s 9.3km race was Malcolm Davies, ninth over-50 finisher in 37:31. Brian Lynch (15th in 39:12) and marathon exponent Tom Cheetham (17th in 39:19) completed the scoring team.

Hercules Wimbledon were the top Surrey and South London team in finishing 10th out of 74 teams in the English National Road Relay Championships in Birmingham.

Their B team finished 21st, also the top B team from South London and Surrey.

Tom Jervis posted the fastest Hercules Wimbledon time of the day for the 5.85km circuit, clocking 17:34 in taking the team through from 29th to 18th on the second leg. Charlie Eastaugh (17:56) moved up four places while George Mallett (18:21) slipped to 18th before Jonny Cornish (17:42) and Oli Carrington (18:21) secured 10th spot.

This improved on the club’s previous best performance in recent years, 13th in both 2018 and 2019.

First leg runner Fred Slemeck and Alex Robinson on leg five were the fastest members of the B team, both clocking 17:53. Other B team runners were Andrew Penney (17:58), Joe Croft (18:27), Jackson Creegan (18:46) and Henry Silverstein (18:55).

Teenager Hector Revill chopped 31 seconds off his inaugural time set last month in finishing runner-up in Saturday’s St Andrew’s 5km parkrun in Scotland in 16:33. Anastasia Hancock was third woman in Southwark Park.

Hercules Wimbledon’s cross country runners are in action in the opening Surrey cross country league meeting of the season in Richmond Park – the first league fixtures since February 2020.

The women’s Division One 6km race is due off at 11am followed by races for U15 and U17 girls (midday), U13 girls (12.30pm) and the senior women’s Division Two race at 1pm.

The women are followed by the U13 boys 3.2km, the U15 boys and U17 men 4.7km and the Division One senior men’s 8.3km races at 2pm, 2.30pm and 3pm respectively.

All races start and finish near the Sheen Cross crossroads close to both Sheen and Roehampton Gates.