The oldest alumni cross-country competition in the UK, it is also the most hotly contested. For the third successive year, UK ODs stepped up to take on all comers and distinguished themselves in battle which was fought in frosty and muddy conditions across a 5 mile course on and around the Wimbledon Common last Saturday 15th December. In our first year the OD team finished 14th out of 39, then 13th and this year, fielding six highly-tuned athletes, we came in 16th position. Shivering in the photo,
Gordon Robinson (F, 1990),
James Klatzow (K, 2008),
John Stanford (F, 1998),
Caelim Parkes (O, 1990),
Chris Molteno (G, 2010) and
Rowan Nicholls (O, 2010).
Our skipper,
Rowan Nicholls reports:
"Bishops came in 16th place out of 37. No sign of the New Zealand team! They must have heard we were coming. So still the only international alumni association to take part. Team results
HERE (we are indexed as BCTSA):
"A combination of the cold, the wet and injuries saw a couple of late drop-outs but we still managed to get six warriors to the startline and around the course. Well done especially to
John Stanford (F, 1998) for leading the team home in a very impressive time of 33:20! I'm hardly surprised at this performance given the speed with which he overtook me at about the 4km mark. Second was
James Klatzow (K, 2008). I was third and Chris was fourth to round off our scorers. Individual results
HERE.
"The organisers had a bit of a tough time finalising the results; in their own words: 'Results were challenging due to a combination of soggy bits of paper, frozen fingers, and (we suspect) some of you handing numbers to the wrong team members - if not, we have some world age group records to be proud of today!' We as Bishops boys were definitely too on-the-ball to hand out wrong numbers, but I'm sure that some of us came close to breaking world records!
"A truly creditable performance and congratulations and thank you to our team for flying the flag.
"Fun fact: this is the 150th year of the Thames Hare & Hounds club and, by extension, the 150th year of organised cross-country. We can claim to be a part of history...".
The field hospital for after-race rehydration and succour was as is customary, The Telegraph.
Thanks to Rowan for not just running the race, but for all the effort he put into organising the OD team.
