Jamie Crowe and Eloise Walker were crowned Scottish champions at the Lindsays Scottish Short Course Cross-Country Championships on a surprisingly dry and mild day in Lanark.
The event took place at Lanark Racecourse, which was the venue for the first-ever Scottish XC Championships back in 1886 with Crowe, who was representing Central AC, winning his maiden title at the event at the age of 28, taking gold ahead of second-placed Scott Stirling of Falkirk Victoria Harriers and Freddie Carcas of Edinburgh AC in third.
Crowe, who has won several Scottish XC titles in previous seasons over longer distances than yesterday’s course of 4km, admitted he was delighted to have had the speed in his legs required to take gold.
“This is a bit on the short range for me so it’s always difficult going up against 800m and 1500m guys,” Crowe said.
“This is probably one of the hardest ones to win so I’m pretty chuffed.”
With a group of half a dozen still in contention at halfway, Crowe ultimately had enough left in the closing metres to outsprint his compatriots.
“The pack was big in the first lap and loads of those guys have big kicks so I was a wee bit worried,” he said.
“Scott (Stirling) took it on into the wind and it was only him, me and Freddie (Carcas) there so as soon as I got to the last corner, I put a big kick in and managed to get away.”
Walker crossed the line ahead of her Edinburgh AC teammate Kirsty Walker and Shettleston Harriers’ Fionnuala Ross who finished second and third respectively.
“It was really nice conditions, I like it when it’s not very muddy” the 22-year-old said.
“So I’m very pleased.”
Both Crowe and Walker also picked up gold medals in the senior team events, with the Central AC squad of Crowe, Ben MacMillan, Calum Phillip and Connor Bell coming home first while Walker was part of the Edinburgh AC women’s squad that was also made up of individual silver medallist, Walker as well as Nancy Scott and Alice Goodall.
In total, there was almost 800 finishers across the men’s and women’s senior races and the next major date in the calendar is the GB trials for the European XC Championships, which will take place in Liverpool in three weeks.
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