Enfield & Haringey Athletic Club round-up (From Enfield Independent)

Enfield & Haringey Athletic Club round-up

10:20am Thursday 26th November 2009

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A NICE surprise at the London Cross Country Championships staged at Parliament Hill Fields last Saturday was the second-team place gained by the Enfield & Haringey AC under-17 men’s team.

The club’s scoring quartet was led home by Michael Christoforou in a - so far - rare appearance over the country. Michael was always well placed and showed that his recent spell of consistent training with coach Malcolm Blackmore is producing results. Michael was followed over the finish line by Rory Wagstaff (coached by Derek Ives) and Joe Sherry and Alex Cordell who are both in Peter Scott's training group, ample proof that the club's middle-distance coaches ARE producing the goods.

With his sights still firmly fixed on championships later this winter and next summer’s track season, Shaun Collins had decided to use the 10km U20/Senior race as a good training session by splitting the race into six-minute segments and alternating hard with relaxed efforts. Despite this Shaun - who celebrated his 20th birthday the previous Wednesday - finished eighth in the combined race and was the second under-20 (athletes who were under-20 on 31st August, 2009). Unfortunately, however, the organisers - in trouble with the results computer programme throughout the afternoon - gave Shaun's silver medal to the third junior who had finished 42 seconds behind the Enfield & Haringey athlete.

Some hard talking by team manager and coach Geoff Harrold in the results' hut persuaded the statistics team that Collins was not a senior just because he had turned 20 three days earlier and managed to extract a promise that Shaun would get his silver medal - eventually.

Earlier in the week, Alex Milne had finished second in the London Colleges Cross Country League at Wimbledon Common, claiming many highly ranked scalps.

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