Scotland win SHI’s, 2011
Scottish Domination at SHIs
The Scottish team made the long journey to South Wales on 22/23 October for this years Senior Home International. A strong team travelled south, and this added to what appeared to be a weakened England team, hopes of a win were high. Due to late withdrawals through illness, the team were very grateful for 11th hour replacements Andrew Lindsay and Jegor “Mc"Kostylev.
The individual was held on Merthyr Common, an open expanse of limestone plateau, littered with depressions and pits and scattered with boulderfields. The W20 class was an Anglo-Welsh affair, with Kirstin Maxwell and Jess Orr occupying 5th and 6th places respectively, but both disappointed with error ridden runs. M20 saw an upturn in fortunes with Alan Cherry living up to his billing as favourite and taking the win, despite a “scrappy” run. Tom Ryan couldn’t quite utilise his leg speed and his 6th place could have been much better but for a few errors. Youngster and supersub Andrew Lindsay took a soild 9th place.
W21 saw another win for Hollie Orr, the WOC runner back racing again after a recent injury took the win by 3min. 2nd place came from Mhairi Mackenzie making a welcome return to a Scotland shirt. Next counters came from Hazel Wright in 4th and Jess Halliday in 7th with Kirsten Strain and Fiona Berrow packing in close behind. M21 saw a surprise win for James Tullie who ran strongly and cleanly amongst the pits to win by 3min and record his best result for some time. Alastair McLeod, Jegor Kostylev and Oleg Chepelin completed the top 4 and a clean sweep of the points for the Scottish boys. It would have been a top 5 had Duncan Coombs not miss-punched the last control.
A good day for the team and a convincing win on the individual day with 130 points. However, the interesting scoring system meant for the overall competition there was a tie at the top with England and Scotland both on 24 points. Designed to make the competition closer, it had succeeded in making it all to play for in the relays. Not downbeaten by this, 2 roughly equal relay teams were picked in both mens and womens, with the confidence that this would secure the win. A mention must go to the food at the social from the Welsh Junior squad which was top quality!
The relays were held on Clydach Terrace a detailed open area with a mixture of fast running and tussocks. Some excellent planning saw challenging courses with great viewing for the spectators.
In the mens, leg one saw a Welsh lead for Kris Jones but only a few strides behind Alan Cherry brought Scotland 2 home vying for the lead and setting out Duncan Coombs on a chance for redemption. England sneaked in next just ahead of Jegor Kostylev (3rd leg runner Lorna Eades was already getting twitchy). Tom Ryan for Scotland 1 came in 7th after losing touch due to a mistake, but a solid second half saw him hand over to Alastair Mcleod well in contention. Duncan Coombs took the lead from Wales early on and Alastair Mcleod began ploughing through the field. Duncan handed over to Oleg Chepelin with a 1min lead over Wales and Alastair came in 3min behind Duncan after a particularly fast second half and handed over to James Tullie.
Oleg ran strongly and slowly extended the lead. Meanwhile James passed the Welsh runner as he erred at number one and ran steadily in second place. Behind the English battled along but never looked like spoiling the Scottish party and things finished as they started with Scotland 2 and Oleg Chepelin taking a 4min win from Scotland 1 and James Tullie with England 2 taking 3rd a further 3min back. Mention must go to Scotland 3 anchored by team manager/coach/mum Lorna Eades who took 10th place.
The Scottish women had its fair to say probably their best SHI relays in recent times (perhaps ever?). On 1st leg Jess Halliday led home Scotland 6 1min ahead of England and Scotland 5 with Hazel Wright. Kirsten Strain produced another good relay run to come in 4th on a competitive first leg a further 1min down. On second leg, the W20s took up the mantle. After a disappointing day in the individual they had a point to prove and set out with purpose. While Heather Gardner for the fancied English team erred the girls ran brilliantly to come home 1-2-3 within a minute apart. Particular mention must go to Jo Shepherd who had an uncharacteristic nightmare the day before but bounced back superbly. The stage was set, could the ladies finish the job? It was never in doubt. Mhairi Mackenzie overhauled Hollie Orr to bring home Scotland 5 in 1st place, with Hollie bringing Scotland 6 in 2nd then Fiona Berrow completing the whitewash taking 3rd for Scotland 4. England took 4th 3min back. A more dominant performance by the girls does not come to mind. All 9 runners ran well, with times all within 4min of each other.
The relays left no doubt about the destination of the SHIs 2011 trophy. Scotland took the win and on this form it will take a very strong team to challenge them next year on home soil. Everyone left Wales on a high due to the individual and collective performances. The team spirit present cannot be underestimated and there is great potential for this to drive the team on to the spring season and beyond. Thanks must go to Lorna Eades who again put to in a power of work to make it happen.
James Tullie
Links to the results, splits, RouteGadget & photos.
Winsplits: Individual - Relay
The scoring is complicated but the final points were:
Scotland 54, England 46, Wales 28, Ireland 16
Download a spreadsheet with the results calculations
Photos by Nick Dallimore
Posted on 28th Oct 11
by Admin -
Filed under: Elite Squad • News
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