SixteEn young Scottish hill runners were treated to windy but near ideal running conditions for the Junior Home Country International in the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin.
Scotland U20 men successfully defended their team gold in emphatic fashion.
Thomas Hilton spearheaded the attack in third place closely followed by Rowan Taylor in fourth. Angus Wright and Ethan Lorimer brought the team home to secure a golden performance in sixth and seventh respectively.
The top individual performance of the day from the Scots was by Cerys Wright of Lasswade AAC in the U17 women.
Cerys finished just seven seconds behind the winner to secure a well-deserved silver medal. It was a silver lining for the team as well with strong runs by Kirsty Rankine seventh, Eliza Konig in ninth and Ava Richardson 12th.
Cerys Wright celebrates silver on the U17 Women’s podium in Ireland
Scotland U17 men with Lachlan Thomas on the left
In the U17 Men’s race, an impressive individual performance from Lachlan Thomas resulted in an individual bronze medal denying England from a clean sweep of the podium places.
Alasdair McLean ran strongly to finish sixth followed by Ben Hodson 14th and Dan McGuire 16th. The Scotland team thus did just enough to hold off Wales and take home team silver.
A dominant England team in the U20 Women’s race secured the top four places however Jessica Taylor was very much in the mix to take fifth place.
Isla Patterson ran a well paced effort to finish seventh followed by Eliza Konig 11th and Katie Meek 14th. Another great team performance secured Scotland a third set of team silver medals.
Despite consistently strong performances in every race it was not enough to prevent England from retaining the Edinburgh Cup.
Thanks and congratulations go to our generous Irish hosts for putting on a great event with a testing course that had something for everyone.
With thanks to Bill Breckenridge
Thomas Hilton in race action
Tags:
hill running, Ireland
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