Press Report 20th November 2017
London Youth Games Championship
Parliament Hill
Saturday 18th November
Ilford young athletes continued their cross country season by representing their boroughs at the London Youth Games championship held at Parliament Hill fields last Saturday. Ilford had three runners representing Redbridge, two representing Havering and one Barking and Dagenham.
First up were the U15 boys in which Ilford had four runners, conditions were fairly firm under foot and the four boys all made good starts and were well positioned at the top of the first hill. Over the next mile Aaron Samuel closed in on the leaders and was in the top three at around half way. Farris Patel and Jak Wright were having their own battle back in the 30’s. Bradley Deacon had made a more aggressive start and was also moving through the field. Into the final part of the course Mohammed Ali of Ealing had broken away from the field, but Aaron had a storming second half of the race to finish in a brilliant second place. Farris won his personal battle with Jak to take 28th place, with Jak just behind in 35th. Bradley was rewarded for all his recent hard training with 79th place and improvement of over 60 places compared to the same race last year.
Next up was Matthew Hick in the U13 boys, running for Havering. Matthew had raced for his school the day before so it was always going to be tough for him, but he acquitted himself well. After a slow start he finally managed to get into his running and was passing people all the way down the home straight to eventually finish 48th.
Last up was Jordan Hinds in the U17 girls, competing for Redbridge, having been waiting almost 3.5 hours for her race to start, Jordan struggled to get going in the early stages of the race, but her strength gained in her recent training meant she was always moving through the field. She eventually finished in 54th place and although a little disappointed, she had plenty left for the bigger races coming up
