England teams take international title at Leeds Abbey Dash
The hugely popular 10k saw an international line up of England, Northern Ireland and Wales alongside two regional teams from the North and Midlands and a further two combined Teams from the Leeds Universities and the Armed Forces.
Team England support staff of Kyle Bennett (Team Leader) and Matt Long (Team Coach) were pleased to see both the Men and Women finishing as top international teams. In the Men's race, Northern Ireland were runners up with Wales in 3rd and in the Women’s race, Wales were runners up with Northern Ireland 3rd.
Ross Skelton (HY Runners, Geoff Watkin), led his country home in a fine 7th place (29m22s), four places ahead of Nigel Martin (Sale Harriers, Norman Poole) running a solid 29m30s. Anchoring the team home was Dom Dolan whose 29m53 (Croydon Harriers; Tm Egen) was achieved despite incurring a bad stitch in the latter part of the race. The men were 3rd team overall behind a superb Midlands team led home by Omar Ahmed 28m52s and the North who took runners up spot.
Front runner for the women was Dani Chattenton (MK Distance Project; Kyle Bennett), with a superb 5th in 32m51, two places ahead of Nicole Taylor (Tonbridge; Richard Owen) who shook off a sleep disrupting headache to record a fine 33m06s. Danielle Hodgkinson (Wallsend, Tom Craggs) produced a 34m37s performance to bring the team home behind a rampant Northern team led by the irrepressible Tokyo Olympian Jess Judd (31m38s).