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The Napier Harrier Club once again contested their Club Cross Country Championship in conjunction with the Provincial Cross Country Champs, this year in Gisborne.
A week of heavy rain had forced some late changes to the course that the host club had hoped to use, and their hastily revised course turned out to be well short of the advertised distances. This said, the heavy mud, stream crossings and hilly nature of the course certainly made up for some of the lack of distance.
The club took several mini-buses full of club members through to the event and 35 Napier athletes took to the course. Georgia Creagh predictably won the Girls 12 club title, but was presented with a real battle from Jessica Blakeman of the host club and had to settle for second (by 4 seconds) in the provinicial title race.
In the Boys 12 race the Christison siblings kept each other honest with elder brother Bradley coming home 11 seconds clear of Thomas for a One-Two finish in both the club and provincial race.
Shamus Christison made it a double for the family by winning the Boys 14 club title, but was beaten to the line in the provincial race by Gisborne's Tayler Reid. Kelly Sunnex was beaten by a pair of Gisborne athletes in winning the club's girls 14 title.
Toa Elphic-Iaveta had an outstanding run in the M16 race cleaning up both the club and provincial titles by a very comfortable 1:24 margin - well justifying his selection to the team for the National Champs. Annie Creagh was well beaten in her W16 provincial race, finishing 3:47 behind Gisborne's Grace McConnochie, but won the club title uncontested and, perhaps a little luckily, was also selected to the team for nationals.
The Middleton family won the double in the Masters races with new club member Michelle winning the club title while finishing second in the provincial race, and Ron winning the club Masters title. Michelle had made a decision earlier in the week to up-grade her membership to fully registered, but Ron's decision to remain a 'member' only left him missing out a provincial bronze.
Another new member to clean up both club and provincial titles was Ni'ia Hothersall, who showed the benefits of some good winter training and relished the soft underfoot conditions to take her first title by 1:48.
There was no surprise when Eric Speakman won his first Senior title, but the margin of the win certainly showed the rather sorry state of Senior running in the province.
Both Eric and Ni'ia were also selected to the National Cross Country Team.
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