Avery tears through opposition for Lake prize
SHILDON’S European double silver medallist Kate Avery produced a storming finish to take victory in the second fixture of the UK Cross Challenge held at Tear Drops Lake, Milton Keynes.
After a lean couple of years, Avery showed she is back to her best by winning the 5.65k contest in 18min 14secs after kicking away in the closing stages to win by five seconds from Stockport’s Jessica Piasecki with Jessica Judd (Blackburn) completing the podium places.
Avery, who is targeting another go at the European Championships next month, said: “I’m over the moon with that. Training has been going much better since the Cardiff race [she finished runner-up on that occasion] and I wanted to be really strong and didn’t want it to be a slow pace from the start so I tried to push it on a bit.’’
Current North East Counties Cross-Country champion Sonia Samuels did well to finish seventh (19:12) over a much shorter distance than accustomed to while Wallsend’s Danielle Hodgkinson crossed the line in 21st in 19:58.
Meanwhile, in Spain, Morpeth’s Rory Leonard, in his first under-20 international, finished runner-up behind Jake Heyward (Wales) in the Cross de Atapuerca in Burgos.
Leonard led England to a convincing win in the team race which sets him up nicely for the trials for the European Championships in two weeks’ time.
In the senior women’s race, which was packed with African athletes, Birtley’s Lydia Turner was the third counter when finishing 26th in helping England to another team success.