The Greater Manchester Cross-Country Championships were held on a wet and muddy Woodbank Park at the weekend. Particularly Sale Harrier's youngsters are to be congratulated for doing well on a tough course. Whilst the mud and hills do not suit everyone, for the first time in a number of years, Sale youngsters were amongst the medallists in every team race.

In the U13 events the boys retained their title with Jake Spilsbury 4^th, Adam Spilsbury 6^th, Andre Yiasuomi 7^th and Dylan Burchill 10^th. The girls were runner's up and also finished a second team in 4^th place. The much improved Ciara Lydon led the team home in 3rd place with Ellie Twite 7^th, Olivia Green 8^th Aine Cunningham 9^th, Claudia Cowan 10^th and Francesca Brint 12^th. These were tremendous results as all the girls apart from Ciara are young enough to run in this age-group next year.

In the U15 events the girls had a magnificent team victory with Catherine Podmore 5^th, Flora Whyte 6^th, and Hannah Simeen 8^th. The boys finished 3^rd with Euan Gilchrist 7^th, Sam Mayon 11^th, and Jordan Bezzina 26^th. In the Derbyshire Championships, congratulations to Adam Roden who just missed out on a medal.

In the U17 events, Megan Davies and Ryan Moore both became County Champions. Ryan won by a comfortable margin and led the team to runners-up spot with Alex Burchill 4^th and Kyle Conway 10^th. Megan Davies won her race on a sprint finish and is young enough to defend her title next year, The Sale team finished 3^rd with Irmani Modahl 12^th and Misha Nayak-Oliver 13^th. Congratulations are also due to Chloe Yates who finished 6^th in the Cheshire County Championships on the same day.

In the Senior men's race Salford were again the dominant force retaining the title for the 3^rd consecutive year and Andi Jones (who's wife Donna is the club's pretty nifty middle distance specialist) retained the individual title.  Sale finished as bronze medallists behind the Salford 'A' & 'B' teams, a commendable position and an improvement on last year's fourth. Niall Brooks also improved to fourth place with Tim Kennedy, Peter Crawford and Paul Rowley being the tough guys who coped best with the tough course and brought home the medals. Phil Scowcroft finished in the same 28^th place as last year whilst Paul Barrett, Steve Gavin, Frank Cordingley and Tim Rainey who formed  the core of the 'B' team that finished 10^th would have taken the course in their stride from their experiences on the region's Fells.

Our women retained their 4^th place from the last two years with the Salford team also retaining the title. Emily Beedham continued her fine winter form to place 4^th. Sian Holland must have had one of her best ever runs for 13^th and Alison Pye also had every reason to be pleased with 17^th place.

The mudlarks will be glad to know we return to Woodbank Park this weekend for the Manchester Area Cross-Country League. Photographs can be viewed on http://www.darkstarphotos.com/and www.hsphotos.co.uk