Kent Veterans Cross Country Champs

Sevenoaks AC's M50 team picked up medals for the first time with bronze at the Kent Veterans Cross Country Championships at Bexleyheath on 7th December. On a firm, flattish course of just over six miles, Chris Desmond led the Sevenoaks team home in 11th place, closely followed by Keith Dowson in 13th and with John Stevens closing the team in with 26th place. Graeme Saker of Tonbridge AC won the race, with a strong Dulwich Runners team picking up the team gold.

Despite being without their best runner in the category, Sevenoaks also fielded a full team in the M60 event, where the team missed out on bronze medals by a single point to Medway and Maidstone AC. Geoff Vine in 16th (and 5th M65) was closely followed by Lyndon Collins in 19th while Geoff Kitchener sprang from behind teammate Simon Hallpike in the last 80 metres to become Sevenoaks' third scorer in 23rd. Unfortunately M&M's second scorer also overtook Hallpike at that point and the bronze medals were lost. Julian Spencer-Wood of Kent AC won the individual race with Blackheath and Bromley Harriers taking the team title.

In the individual stakes, Jim Fitzmaurice was perhaps the top Sevenoaks performer with third place in the M70+ category, although Ron Denney in fourth place was also the second M75. The race was won by Michael Conway of Invicta East Kent AC.

Andrew Mead was the club's only runner in the youngest M40 category where he was 24th - and 11th M45 - in a strong field. Chris Greenwood of Kent AC won the M40 race and led his club to the gold medals.

The Sevenoaks AC results were as follows:

Men 40-49:

Pos-

ition

Race-

No.

Gun-

Time

Name

Gen-

der

Cat-

egory

Club

Rank

 Men 50 - 59:

Pos-

ition

Race-

No.

Gun-

Time

Name

Gen-

der

Cat-

egory

Club

Rank

 Men 60 - 69:

Pos-
ition

Race-

No.

Gun-

Time

Name

Gen-

der

Cat-

egory

Club

Rank

Men 70+:

Pos-

ition

Race-

No.

Gun-

Time

Name

Gen-

der

Cat-

egory

Club

Rank

The full results are here.