BAC’s juniors make a great start to the cross country season
Biggleswade AC’s junior athletes got the 2025/26 cross country season off to a great start with some fine runs in the club’s opening Chiltern XC League match of the season at Verulamium Park, St Albans, on Saturday October 11.
Highlights included top 10 finishes by two of our U-11 runners; three U-11 league debutants all putting in strong performances; three of our teenage runners achieving top half finishes in their first races in a higher age category; and the U-13B team finishing 3rd in their division.
Clubs from Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire compete in the league which is organised into two divisions (except for U-11s), with all runners competing in the same races at the same venues. Scoring is done separately for each division. BAC compete in Division 2.
First up of BAC’s ten-strong team at St Albans was Theia Freeston-Bull running in her second season as an U-11G. She finished a fine 10th of the overall 52 runners in her race, a marked step up from her best finishing place of 28th last season.
Next up were three club debutants in the league and all produced great runs in the U-11B race. Nathan Cornwall produced a particularly notable performance, falling over at one point after being tripped but recovering quickly to race on and finish 5th of the overall 84 runners, only six seconds behind the winner. Team mates Jacob Hegarty-Powell and Teddy Warren finished just two seconds apart, in 45th and 51st places, respectively. As a team of three, they finished a fine 9th of the total 18 scoring clubs in their U-11B division.
The club also fielded a team of three in the U-13B race. Theo Milner was an overall 30th in a total field (Divisions 1 and 2 combined) of 96, with Ross Bone just 10 seconds behind in 39th and Lewis Evans, in his first cross country run as an U-13, only another 10 seconds back in 45th. More significantly, they finished 7th, 9th and 10th, respectively, in the Division 2 category to claim a great team 3rd place out of the seven scoring clubs in their division.
In the U-15 age group, two of BAC’s more experienced junior cross country runners also produced strong runs. In the U-15G race, Lauren Bone finished 21st overall in a field of 79 and 5th of the 22 Division 2 runners. Austin Milner, in his first cross country race as an U-15B, finished a very encouraging 43rd overall of 94 runners and 11th of the 25 in Division 2.
BAC’s final runner on the day was Sidney Hammond who ran very well to achieve a top half finish in his first cross-country race as an U-17M over a much longer distance than he was used to running previously. He finished 27th overall in a total field of 70 and 7th of the 16 Division 2 runners.
Summing up the day, Alison Bone, BAC's team manager for the Chiltern XC League, commented: "What a fantastic start to the cross country season! It was lovely to welcome Nathan, Jacob and Teddy to the team for their first taste of cross country running. The sun shone, the cheering was loud − and not a drop of mud in sight! Congratulations everyone on your superb performances. I hope you all enjoyed the day.”
RESULTS: https://chilternccl.co.uk/results/
PHOTOS: Many thanks to sports photographer Mark Easton for allowing us to use some of his photos with this report. If you would like to see his full gallery of photos from the meeting, which include unedited copies of the photos we’ve published and others showing BAC runners in action, please use this link: https://markeaston.zenfolio.com/f495732361
Many thanks also to Helen Milner and Doug Hammond who took the other photos.
●The next Chiltern XC League meeting is on Saturday November 15 at Horspath, Oxford, followed by one at Campbell Park, Milton Keynes, on Saturday December 6. If you’d like to join the team for either or both those meetings, please contact Alison (email: