2017 Northern Counties Cross Country Relay Championships
Graves Park, Sheffield – Saturday 21st October 2017
The 2017 Northern Counties cross country relay championships were staged at Graves Park in Sheffield on Saturday the 21st of October. 719 junior athletes from clubs in the North of England competed at the championships in the age categories of under 11 to under 20.
Kingston upon Hull AC were represented at the championships by the same under 15 boys trio of Adam Fox, Tom Smales and Harvey Roberts who had competed so well at Septembers Northern road relay championships in Manchester.
They were one of 38 complete and nine incomplete teams who were tested over a two kilometre course, where a total of 129 athletes were in competition across the three legs of the race.
Adam Fox took out the baton on the first leg and despite being unable to find his best form the County cross country silver medallist put in a gutsy effort which saw him cover the course in a time of 7:51 sec before handing over in 27th place to Tom Smales who ran a strong leg picking off 13 athletes with a great run of 7:38 sec to hand the baton over to Harvey Roberts for the third and final leg with the team in 4th place, Harvey ran a strong race covering the two kilometre course in a time of 7:43 sec for 10th place on his leg which saw the team finishing in 14th position with a combined team time of 23:12 sec.
2017 has seen all three boys give excellent service to the Kingston junior team in their league campaign in the UK National Development league, and all of them have won County vests in both track & field and cross country championship meetings. They also finished in the top 5 in the under 15’s race at this September’s ‘Hull Marathon Fun Run’ where Adam Fox was the race winner and Tom Smales finished 3rd with Harvey Roberts finishing 5th.
