Sarum Score Successes
The British Schools Score Championships were held this year at Moors Valley Country Park which made it practical to try to put in a team of our new youngsters. As this is a schools event there were just three small teams representing Harnham, St. Marks and Grateley House junior schools but all seven children from Sarum looked and felt to be running for the club in what was, for them, their first big competitive junior event. It was a bit scary to see how many juniors some other clubs could amass but our youngsters did exceptionally well for themselves and the Club can be really proud of them, especially as three made it onto the podium and everyone else put in very competitive performances. All in all 176 children from 48 primary, middle and secondary schools from all over the country travelled to Moors Valley to run in what was a very competitive event.
The controls were set out in the complex path network of the park with all the children having the same map. There was a time limit of 45 minutes in which to collect all the 28 controls. Eight controls were set out as per a typical white course and we suggested that our runners might wish to focus on finding these and getting round safely. In fact everyone went further than this and included many more controls on well thought out routes. Elara Jacobs was first out but suffered a nasty fall early on after having made an impressive start and was forced to retire to First Aid. Fortunately Sarum was providing the First Aid cover so she was well looked after.
The star result of the day came from Toby Halsey and Finn McCormack who took first place in the Boys year 6. Dan Robertson also had a great solo run taking second place in the boys year 5 class with the same score as the winner, just taking a couple of minutes longer.
In fact all our runners finished with time to spare so might have been able to collect a few more controls. Ben Jacobs ended up with 10 minutes in hand, having forgotten to start his countdown on his watch, and could have outscored everyone. Cam Jacobs and Max Duncan also had good runs and put in a storming finishes.
In the overall primary school competition Harnham School (Dan,Ben and Elara) came in 4th place and St Marks (Finn, Toby and Max) were in 6th place. Not bad when the winning teams had twice as many runners counting.
These were exceptional results for juniors running for the first time in a really competitive environment so well done to the whole Sarum Team and to the Mums and Dads who supported them and thanks to the Sarum coaches and volunteers who helped on the day.
Full results and photo galleries can be found here.
The photos in this report are courtesy of Ray Barnes, Polly Jacobs, Juliette McCormack and Ian Peirce.