Two Bicester athletes, Leo Blyton and Owen Stocker, made the Oxfordshire team for this year’s English Schools Cross Country Championship held recently at the Ardingly Showground, Sussex. Conditions at Ardingly were bright and breezy, if a little chilly, and fairly firm underfoot. Quite a change from the mud-fest of most of the season. This is the country’s most prestigious school’s cross country event.
Blyton came to the race in great form – pipped into second in the Oxon league and 23rd at Inter-Counties in the bottom year of the age group – and lined up at the front of the Oxon pen in a field of around 350 runners. . After what was a frantic race, Blyton was in about 25th place at the first corner as the race started to settle down. Steadily moving through the field, by the 1km mark a group of 4 had broken clear, with Harry Cantell (Cambs), Theo Creed (London) and Elliot Langley-Aybar (Berks) alongside Leo. By 2km this group had whittled down to three, with the lead changing as the course rose and fell. With 500m to go, Leo upped the pace and broke clear, stretching his lead to finish first with a time of 8m22s for the 2.85km distance, with a lead of 5 seconds over Cantell, with Creed a further 2s back. Oxfordshire placed 10th in the team competition.
Blyton is the first Bicester athlete to win a national title, and the first Oxfordshire boy to win a national school’s title since Nick Barton who won the Senior boys event in 1963. The last Oxfordshire runner to win a schools cross country title was Hattie Archer (nee Dean) who won in 1999 and went on to represent Britain in both track and field and cross country. Blyton now goes on to represent England Schools at a Home Countries international in Scotland.
Owen Stocker put in a solid performance in the Senior Boy’s race, finishing 133rd out of the field of 318 clocking 19m 40s for the 6km distance as the third Oxfordshire finisher, helping Oxfordshire to 18th in the team competition.