Nopesport

Senior Home Internationals 2006 – Sheffield, England

Senior runners from across the British Isles gathered in Sheffield this weekend to contest the Senior Home Internationals. England were the favourites as usual, but their team was depleted by the numerous Sheffield based runners who felt unable to take part due to their significant knowledge of the terrain. Scotland were riding high on a wave of team spirit having won the last two SHIs in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Ireland and Wales were probably not going to be in contention for the overall title, but both nations had some strong runners who could threaten the podium.

The racing kicked off on Saturday with the Relay which was held on Loxley Common, a varied area on the outskirts of Sheffield, comprising areas of intricate detail with vaguer heathland area. Both Men and Women ran the same courses, and planner Dave Peel had some tricks up his sleeve to test the wits of the competitors. The longer first and last legs had a loop where runners started and finished at common control, but ran it in opposite directions. This caught more than one runner out, including Allan Bogle of Ireland who was leading first leg at the time. Murray Strain of Scotland finished first on first leg and handed a 1-minute lead over to Duncan Coombs with James Tullie (SCO 2) and Andrew Llewellyn (ENG 1) in hot pursuit. Meanwhile Claire Ward and Jo Stevenson had worked together for the first two Scotland teams, and came in an astonishing 6 minutes ahead of the next runners.

Duncan Coombs managed to stay ahead of Andrew, but only just, and Graham Gristwood had passed his Scottish counterpart Oleg Chepelin before the start kite. Neither ran clean runs but they were far enough ahead to hold on to the top two spots. Andy Kitchin brought the second Scottish team into third place and there was a huge cheer from the Irish AND the Scots, when Steve Linton appeared 20m ahead of the second English runner to give the men’s relay to Scotland.

Meanwhile in the Womens Hollie Orr held the lead for the scots on second leg, while Kirsten Strain was caught by two English runners. Mhairi Mackenzie took over from Hollie and extended the Scottish teams leading margin to take victory. Pippa Whitehouse was the next runner across the line, but it quickly emerged that she had mispunched, meaning that Sarah Dunn anchored the Scottish team to second place. Lizzie Adams outsprinted Helen Palmer to deny the Welsh a famous trumping of their neighbours.

Individual and Video reports to follow.