Birtley trio battle into eighth spot

A DEPLETED Birtley team failed to repeat last year’s podium place and had to be content with eighth spot in the Northern Cross-Country Relay Championships in Graves Park, Sheffield.

Twelve months ago at the same venue the Birtley trio of Chloe Price, Sophie Burnett and Lydia Turner finished runners-up behind Lincoln Wellington in the 3x2-mile contest.

However, Price was unavailable to make the trip this time round due to injury so Lorna Graham, a mother of six who was expected to line up for Birtley’s B team, was promoted into the team at the 11th hour and while she did as well as could be expected on the first leg she came up to the changeover point in 31st place.

Burnett took over from Graham and proceeded to cut through the teams ahead and came up to hand over to Turner in 14th position.

Despite the wide gaps to the leaders Turner once again showed she is gradually getting it back together again by moving through to eighth to give Birtley a total time of 37min 57secs which was less than a minute from making it onto the podium once again.

Turner was rewarded for her efforts when it was announced that she had posted the fastest overall time of the day of 11:36, a time which was one second quicker than Natasha Haswell who was a member of the winning Rotherham team.

The men’s relay consisted of four two-mile stages and it was Durham City who claimed the region’s bragging rights after holding off Birtley by one place and 20 seconds.

Birtley were in eighth place after two stages but gradually slipped back to finish 26th.

Durham City also got off to a good start thanks to Luke Pickering who had the tangerines in 16th position at the completion of the first leg.

The team eventually went on to finish in 25th place.