Sunderland Harriers senior women’s team made club history when they finished third in the North Eastern Counties Cross Country Championships at Redcar Racecourse on Saturday.
It was the first time in the long history of the event that the Wearsiders had won medals.
Third place was a significant improvement after the team had finished in their highest place of sixth in last year’s championships at Aykley Heads, Durham.
With three athletes in the first 17 finishers a team medal place was on the cards, but the fourth counter was way down the field.
This was Vikki Cotton who had made a late decision to compete after being on the sidelines with an Achilles tendon injury.
With much training missed the Whitburn runner was far from her best. But shouts of encouragement from club supporters around the course informing her that the team had a chance of medals, made her raise her pace.
A spirited last lap of the 8k race saw her make up many places and with outstanding runs from Alice Smith in eighth, Vicky Haswell 11th and Nicola Woodward 17th, a battle weary Cotton closed the scoring in 52nd.
Now the team had to wait until the results were declared and they were not confident that they had done enough to secure medals.
Club women’s team manager Eddie Maddison and coach Simon Taylor were also not hopeful, but cheers were heard when the results were announced with Sunderland named the bronze medallists. They had beaten fourth club New Marske by just three points and 20 clubs had closed in teams.
Unfortunately, Cotton was not at the presentation as she thought the medals were lost!
Sunderland Harriers Under-17 women’s team of Sarah Knight 11th, Eve Quinn 19th and Hannah Short 27th would have won their team championship, if only Under-17s had been counted in the competition.
Because entries are a lot fewer in the Under-17s and Under-20s, they are joined together to make one race and both age groups athletes are counted for team purposes.