Herne Hill Harriers round-up: Saskia Millard sixth at BUCS Championship

Saskia Millard finished sixth at the British Universities and Colleges Sports (BUCS) Cross Country Championship at Horsenden Hill in Middlesex on Saturday, writes Geoff Jerwood.

The Herne Hill Harriers athlete led the Birmingham University team to silver medals in the longer 8km women’s race.

Millard, a Great Britain U20 international in European Championships at both track and cross country in 2019 and a British senior championship 5,000m fifth-placer a year later, is now racing well again at a high level.

She is looking forward to establishing herself during 2022 alongside the demands of her medical studies in the Midlands.

Behind Millard in the colours of their universities were more Herne Hill medical undergraduates with Katie Balme (57th) racing for Exeter University, followed in by Grace Leyland (70th) and Jennifer Nandi (141st), both representing St George’s.

Jemima Hayward-Bhika, running for Surrey University finished 143rd.

Oxford University’s Alexa Brown finished 13th in the opening race on the programme, the women’s 6km. Brown was with the lead group for most of the first of the two laps.

Lily Newton did not allow the loss of one of her shoes in the mud with a mile still to run to deter her from finishing in 87th with more than 400 runners completing the course.

Jack Dickenson ran in the men’s 10km race and found the heavy going tough with a series of recent hard races in his legs. He still led his St George’s team home as he came 136th of 280 finishers in the final race of the day.

Some of Harriers road racers were in action on Sunday morning.

John Kettle finished 20th overall and was the first M45 runner at the Chichester 10km in 33:31.

Fiona de Mauny continued her return to full training and racing in the 5km race at Chichester, placing 17th female and first W35 in 19:40, with her husband Chris missing his sub-18 minutes target in 29th overall with 18:10.

Jonathan Ratcliffe was seventh overall and first M50 at the Mornington Chasers Regent’s Park 10km road race.

The best of the Herne Hill parkrun performances on Saturday saw Sophie Harris on the leader board as the seventh fastest female in the UK parkrun list with her 17:40 in Northampton.

Two Herne Hill athletes have been competing very well in indoor track and field for their American universities across the pond.

Yasmin Marghini set a big PB for 3,000m of 9:35.99 at the UW Invitational in Seattle, racing for Boise State University in Idaho. Marghini is now ranked seventh on the UK women’s 3,000m list for the year so far.

On the same day Ore Adamson was long jumping and triple jumping for Texas San Antonio University in Houston. Her long jump of 5.82m was shy of her lifetime best jumps, but her triple jump caught the eye as an indoor PB of 12.30m elevated her to fifth in the UK rankings for 2022.