Eighth place is Avery brave effort by Carl
CARL AVERY made a brave effort to make it on to the podium at the English National Cross-Country Championships at Parliament Hill Fields, London.
The Morpeth athlete gave it his best shot as he was in the leading group of five at the midway stage on another testing National course which cut up badly in places after the previous nine races.
Avery, the Northern cross-country champion, was in contention for a medal right until the final kilometre of the 12k contest - but tired slightly entering the closing stages and eventually finished in eighth place.
However, it’s his best-ever finish in the ‘National,’ having finished 18th last year in Nottingham, 16th at Castle Donnington in 2016 and 25th when the championships were last held at Parliament Hill three years ago.
Despite missing out on making the top three, Avery was still upbeat afterwards.
He said: “Naturally, I would have liked to have finished a bit higher up but having said that it is my best run by far in the National so I have to be pleased on that score.
“I gave it a go but in the end I just Athletics writer ran out of steam but I am not disappointed as there were good lads who finished ahead of me.’’
Morpeth’s challenge to improve on last year’s team silver medals did not quite get off the ground despite Avery’s top-10 position in a race which had well over 2,000 finishers.
Former international Nick Swinburn did make it on to the start line after injury problems to help the club’s cause and was the Northumbrian’s second counter in 41st place - followed closely by Lewis Timmins in 43rd place.
Jordan Scott ran well for the team’s fourth counter in 128th spot with Ross Floyd (217th) and Andy Lawrence (284th) completing the six-to-score contest.
Morpeth closed in with 721 points for 11th place out of the 162 clubs who finished - consolidating their position as the region’s leading endurance outfit.
Crossing the line just 21 seconds behind Avery was Gateshead’s Calum Johnson who was having his first outing since finishing runnerup behind Jack Martin in the North East Counties Championships in December.
Back from a spell training with the GB Triathlon squad in South Africa, Johnson was always just off the pace behind the leading group .
He eventually finished in 11th place - one place better than last year when he finished 12th when the championships were held in Nottingham.
First North East finisher in the senior women’s eight-kilometre championship was also from the Northumberland club - the everconsistent Emma Holt finishing in 42nd place out of the 1,113 finishers.
Holt, the North East XC silver medallist, was in the mid-40s around the mid-way point but lost a few places in the final run to the line.
Next best for the region was Jarrow and Hebburn’s Georgia Campbell in an excellent 53rd, a huge improvement from her outing over the same course in 2015 when she crossed the line in 137th place.
South Shields deserve a pat on the back for finishing leading North East club ahead of Crook, Elvet Striders, Saltwell and Heaton.
MORPETH did have plenty to be happy about after the news filtered through Mhauri MacLennan, the Northern champion, had won gold again - this time in the Scottish Championships in Falkirk.
REPORT, results and pictures of the Parliament Hill junior races with two youngsters making it on to the podium - will appear in Grassroots Sport on Thursday night.