GIAAC 1999/2000 Cross Country Championships

Icart Course - 12 December 1999

Senior/Vet (Over 40) Men (three laps)

GIAAC: New course at Icart tests the mettle of everyone but Alan triumphs

No easy task for Rowe

The course planners were right of course. Cross country running is not meant to be easy and the GIAAC’s new Icart course combined with the elements – gale force winds and driving rain – to make certain it wasn’t that. Only the toughest survived when the club’s best gathered for the annual championship event.

To describe two or three laps of the newly discovered 2.3 mile circuit, much of it ploughed potato fields, as a slog, would be like describing the Olympic Games as a sporting get together. Some had never seen anything like it, and did not wish to again. Take Penny Buckingham, winner of a superbly contested women’s race. Asked whether the Icart circuit was easier than the infamous Havilland Hall lap with its steep climbs, Buckingham had no doubts. ‘Definitely harder, by far. Havilland Hall had horrendous bits but also allowed you to recover. This was just horrendous,’ she said. Tracey Queripel, who pushed the women’s champion so close, was even more emphatic. ‘That was the worst experience I’ve ever had.’ The gallant women’s runner-up was quick to add a rider though. ‘I’m really pleased I did it,’ a sentiment repeated by many others who braved the awful weather, yet finished.

So bad were conditions, both under foot and in terms of the wind and rain, it really was an achievement to complete the race, three laps for senior men and veterans, two laps for the women and male super veterans. Lee Merrien, who gave Alan Rowe a terrific run for his money in the senior men’s event, described the race as ‘more like mud’n’fun than cross country, except without the fun’. The course had its ascents, but only short climbs, and the real challenge lay in the boggy ploughed fields and a water stream which brought many a runner crashing. There were the fierce headwinds, too.

But it certainly brought the racing nature out of the island’s best distance runners. First the women. With Val Phillips not well enough to compete Penny Buckingham might have guessed Tracey Queripel, getting quicker by the week, would push her hard, as might super veteran Chris De La Mare. But Buckingham cannot have guessed it would take so much to see off her rivals and, Queripel, in particular. As a sudden squall struck the field near the end of the first lap Queripel led the way, with Caroline Creed unexpectedly second, Buckingham third and De La Mare fourth. It stayed that way for another lap when Buckingham made her move and squeezed ahead of a tiring Queripel who, in finishing just 7 seconds adrift, can be well pleased with her efforts. Creed was just a few strides back in third, again encouraging news for the club selectors with the inter-insular and Hampshire Championships ahead.

The men’s race was no procession either. Mark Anthony got off to his usual flier before hitting the serious mud. For a short while Paul Ingrouille and Lee Garland took up the pace, but by the end of the first lap it was Merrien and Rowe who had hit the front. Merrine’s lead was 12 seconds as they climbed a steep field near the end of the circuit, Rowe himself 7 seconds up on Ingrouille with Garland fourth, Carl Thompson fifth, Mike Doyle sixth, Nick Despres seventh, Pete Wickins eighth, Anthony ninth and Marley 10^th. Rowe and Merrien completed the second lap in a fraction under 31 minutes, bute there was only a couple of strides in it as the two continued to pull clear of Ingrouille and Garland. Almost four minutes back and 11^th overall Robbie Froome stormed home to win the super veterans stakes from Tom Oliver, but up ahead there was a more important title to be won. Rowe edged away as Merrien temporarily lost his footing early into the final lap and he could not close the gap. The champion steadily inched away and as they came into the finishing straight he had 19 seconds on his younger rival. Rowe’s winning time was a highly commendable 45-53 and it was his sixth championship day victory in seven years. The winner was happy with his morning’s work. ‘I took it farily steady because it was pretty horrendous in the mud, especially across the ploughed field into the wind. I put in a fairly hard half mile on the final lap to get away,’ he added. As for the course, Rowe was less damning than others. ‘In isolation it would be a really good course,’ he said, adding that on a cold January day conditions underfoot would have been a good deal different.

Guernsey Press

 Senior/Vet (Over 35 and over 45) Women’s (two laps)

Veteran (Over 50) Men (two laps)

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