National Glory and a Muddy Battle at Parliament Hill
Women's U20 Team Are National Champions 2025
The National Cross Country Championships brought another unforgettable day of competition, and we’re thrilled to celebrate our U20 Women—National Champions! Their incredible performance secured the title, marking a phenomenal achievement for the club.
Beyond this triumph, the event was a true test of endurance, with our U17 and U20 men putting in determined performances and our senior team battling through relentless mud, brutal hills, and even a few lost shoes. Every athlete gave their all, representing the club with grit and pride.
Full results can be found here: https://results.sporthive.com/events/7298289599397232640
A huge thank you to Paul Austridge for the match report and Micha Evans for the Senior Men’s report.
BBHAC U20 women are National XC Champions 2025. A superb run by Eliza Nicholson winning silver, 16th for Hannah Clark and a strong 19th for Carys Firth backed up well by Libby Whyte, Megan Slattery and Islay Pearson.
U17 Girls
The U17 girls team placed 10th with Naimah Mossi leading the team home followed by Cristina Gilodi-Johnson, Kyla Dervish and Jasmine Mahoney with Caitlin Hough and Eva Denbow completing the squad.
U15 Girls
U15 girls are a busy age group and the BBHAC squad placed 17th led home by Sofia Mossi, Alba Homans-Yau, Hannah Carter, Chloe Morez, Ariana Jenner-Heard and Amelie Ramdeen.
U13 Girls
A 12th place finish for the U13 girls team with a squad of eight. Jazzy Stephens, Eva John and Isabella Jenkins all made the top 100. Olivia King was next home followed by Holly Alford-Smith, Alice Bunn, Freya Denbow and Imogen Jenner-Heard.
U15 Boys
BBHAC U15 boys team was our biggest squad of the day with the 12 turning out and placing 13th team. Year young James Bunn had a strong run coming in at 76th, with James Shaw, Johnny Lee and Zacchaeus Kelman completing the scoring four. Strong running from Alex Smith, Ricardo Cervera-Tomlins, Matias Caceres, Finn Gotkine, Benjamin Evans, Madalitso Valema- Mwanza, Matthew Tootell and Aaron Sebuwufu.
U13 Boys
BBHAC highest place boys team were the U13 age group, who placed a strong 8th overall with year young Emery Aldridge having a superb top ten run, crossing the muddy line in an impressive 9th of 318 finishers! Dexter Mein, Zachary Evans and Billy Pharaoh completed the scoring four and great back up by Luke Eperon, Joshua Bentley and Lewis Crick.
Senior Women
A scoring four of senior women meant no room for error in the senior women race but was enough to secure a good team finish of 18th of 82 club teams. Strong individual runs from Chloe Sharp, Ailbhe Barnes, Jennie Butler and Trang Nguyen ensured the good team placing.
U17 Men
Prior to the race, the U17 Men were hoping for more silverware this winter in the team race. Unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan and they had to settle for 5th place. Joseph (Hill) had a strong run placing 36th, closely followed by Joe (Scanes) in 41st and Jed (Starvis) in 45th. After an incident-packed race, Oliver Ward was the team’s final scorer in 97th place, with Nathan (Clark) a solid 123rd, and Ben O’Grady in 191st.
U20 Men
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to field a complete team in the U20 Men’s race. After a steady start, Mark (Constable) worked his way through the field well to finish a credible 65th with Harry (Fage) in 117th.
Seniors
Where to start with the 137th Senior Men’s National XC Championships at Parliament Hill?!
Probably with the mud – it was everywhere and inescapable – all over the grass, in the tent, on the paths and most certainly out on the course!
We started, like all the age groups and senior women before us, at the bottom of the hill, with some brave (or perhaps foolhardy given what was to come?) souls deciding to attack the iconic incline in order to win the ‘King of the Hill’ title (along with the £50 vouchers and polka dot t-shirt)!
We got off to a good start but the mud seriously slowed us down – in the worst areas your feet would sink at least half a foot if not more into the deep, squelchy and sticky stuff – a battle just to pull your feet out and take the next step.
In fact the mud was so thick it claimed our two best runners’ shoes as both Kevin Fini and Jake Leng lost one each, but opted for different ways of dealing with it – Kev had to stop for some 5 minutes to put his shoe back on and Jake tossed his to his family and carried on with one shoe, which hurt on the hard and stony parts of the course and also cost him time – very unfortunate as both were going really well.
After an additional c.12.27k (longer than the advertised 12k so inflicting further punishment) of tough up and downhills, uneven ground and of course, the aforementioned mud, all of our men who started the race also finished, whether with one shoe or two, but with one thing in common, all very much covered in mud!
Leading the team home was Micah Evans in 53:28 in 253rd place, Dan Kennedy next in 55:08 in 362nd, then Jake Leng in 56:28 in 439th, Kev Fini in 56:50 in 463rd, Will Reedman-White in 58:03 in 523rd and completing our scoring 6 was M50 Doug Varney in 13 seconds over an hour in 659th.
Completing our team were Steve Hough in 796th, Greg Firth in 903rd, Martin Parkinson in 1116th, James Webber in 1127th, Phil Bunn in 1162nd and Barry Horgan in 1512th.
All very respectable performances given the finishing field of 1781.
As a team we came 37th out of 112 complete teams in the 6 to score and 29th in the 9 to score out of 59 complete teams.
Special mentions to Will Reedman-White, Doug Varney, James Webber, Phil Bunn and Barry Horgan on their National XC debuts – hopefully they’ve not been put off for life after their experience!
And also massive thanks to Paul Austridge, Steve Starvis and Steve Rowe (and anyone else who helped?) for putting up and taking down the club tent and for their support, along with Tom Desborough and his parents, other club athletes and my boys Benj and Zach who offered great support and encouragement out on the course helping us all get round!
So an epic day out at a historic race at the home of cross country racing and we all lived to tell the muddy tale – up the Heath!
