Grant crowned Lancashire fell race champion
LAST week was a busy one for the Harriers. They staged their own fell race, the Pete Hartley Memorial Liver Hill race, and the junior and senior sections of the club also contested the Pendle fell races, which for most age groups were the Lancashire championships and the trial races for the Inter Counties fell championships.
The senior men’s squad were also due to race in the Northern Athletics 12 stage road relays up in Redcar on Saturday but unfortunately the clash of fixtures and some late withdrawals due to injury put paid to that.
It was especially disappointing as they have qualified for the national final at Sutton Park for several years and the squad at present is as strong as it’s been for some time.
The Liver Hill race produced some excellent results for all sections of the club and it served as an excellent warm up for the Pendle race for Grant Cunliffe who took the win from Joe Ormrod and Joe Hopley in third.
Grant has been in excellent form on the roads and cross country; he was recently crowned the Red Rose cross country league champion and was a part of the bronze medal winning Lancashire team at the Inter Counties cross country championships in March and on Saturday he became the Lancashire fell champion after a stunning performance on Pendle.
The 7.3K race with 457 metres of ascent starts in the village of Barley and it’s an A Short fell race, which means that it should have at least 20 metres climb per kilometre.
The route takes runners up to the summit plateau before descending via a cart track to the base of the steepest part of Pendle, the “big end” as it’s known and then runners take on the quad burning 177 metre climb to the trig point before returning to the village.
Early in the race Grant was part of a three man group that had broken away from the main 176 strong field and at the top of the cart track he was in third place behind Ilkley’s Nathan Edmondson, who had a small lead over
Clayton’s Chris Holdsworth, the current race record holder, who in turn had approximately 10 metres or so on Grant.
However, the race quickly changed as Cunliffe briefly took the lead on the steep climb before Edmondson established a 30 second advantage over him at the summit with Holdsworth in third place not far behind.
At this point not many of the spectators who had braved the cold at the 577 metre summit gave Grant much chance of catching Edmondson, who has a 30mins 07secs 10K to his name this year. But Grant thought otherwise.
I spoke to him after the race and this is what he had to say when I asked him if he thought he would have to settle for second place when he reached the summit.
“No, I thought before the top of the big end that as he was still in sight I had a good chance of catching him because of my descending speed and in fact I caught him just before a gate about halfway to the finish. Luckily we didn’t have to have a sprint finish.”
Grant crossed the finish line after 31mins 28secs of running with a winning margin over the Ilkley man of 21 seconds and Holdsworth was a distance third with 32mins 49secs. Joe Hopley paced his race perfectly and finished in sixth place and first U23 male with 34mins 03secs, an exceptional run for the talented 19 year old.
Other Rossendale placings were Sean Greenwood in 14th, Ashley Wright 19th, Jon Cleaver 27th, Michael Corbishley 36th, Ian Duffy 48th, Stuart Lewis 53rd, Matthew Clawson 57th, Michael Toman 58th and Lisa Parker who was the second Lancashire lady in 68th.
Joanne Cleaver led home the rest of the Rossendale ladies in 93rd place followed by Claire Dobson in 117th and Hena Chaudry in 138th.
There were also some excellent performances in the junior races earlier in the day.
Elsie Duffy was 11th and second girl in the U11s race and Leo Wright finished in 14th place.
In the U13s race Harry Hopkinson took first and second places and Alice Carr was first girl in sixth place overall followed by Lyla Duffy in ninth place, Iona Bell in 13th, Jacob Milnes in 18th and Eva McClymont in 21st place.
The U15 race was a trial for the junior Inter Counties races at Telford in June so Ruby Cleaver was overjoyed to win her very well deserved first Lancashire vest by virtue of her second place in the girl’s section and 17th overall and Holly Nicholls in 18th place may well get her chance of representing the county at the team manager’s discretion.
Francis Vidler was the first of the Rossendale boys in 13th place followed by Joel Woods in 21st and Theo Ormrod in 25th.
Tilly Duffy will also represent Lancashire in June after finishing as fourth U17 girl but crucially the first Lancashire female in the U17s race.
Xara Lewis has come on in leaps and bounds now that she is racing and training regularly so she will be pleased with her 21st place overall and eighth girl and Eliena Lusty was 25th overall and ninth girl.
Lawrence Vidler in 24th place ran for the boys.