National Inter-Counties 2017 – Loughborough

A long almost single loop course for the U17’s a good solid 6km with some very sticky mud covering the entire width of the course in places. Robbie had another disappointing performance this week, seems to be a standard at all the major events this year finishing way back in 39th place and not scoring for Hampshire team, so despite Hampshire coming 2nd, Robbie did not qualify for a team medal.

Overall one of his worst performances on the cross country circuit, with no real rhyme or reason behind it, obviously he is quite annoyed with his performance, and a talk and planning session with coach Mick Woods needs to be on the cards to give advice and direction for the future.

With only one event left, the English Schools Cross Country Championships coming up on Saturday, a little less expectation sits on his shoulders due to his bottom year status in the schools events. The plan is to go out and maybe try something a little different, play around with the tactics a little and see if we can find something that works.

A great day out for Hampshire as a whole though with Zac Mahamed winning the race and Lachlan Wellington taking Individual Bronze, despite these 2 great individual performances Hampshire were still pipped in to 2nd place in the team event by a very strong Yorkshire team.

Hampshire Team Results (First 4 score)
01 : Zac Mahamed : 20.00
03 : Lachlan Wellington : 20.05
29 : Sam Tyas : 21.01
34 : Jacob O’Hara : 21.05
39 : Robbie Coupland : 21.09
88 : Max Satterley : 21.59
137 : Sam Galpin : 22.35
147 : Steven Cross : 22.44

Robbie couldn’t be found for the team photo, so no team photo, and to be honest it was a struggle to get an action shot of him, he seemed to be constantly hiding behind someone 🙂

Find the Robbie – Stampede at Prestwold Hall

Prospect Park, Reading – Hampshire League (2016/7) 5 of 5

After a bit of re-arranging due to traveller interference the Reading leg of the Hampshire League was held on Saturday March 4th. With the tweaks and changes this became the final event of the league, so timings were altered slightly to take in to account the medals ceremonies, in which AFD were rather prominant.

On the day we had some great performance from both teams and individuals, doing well in the female events with the first three scorers finishing 1,2 and 6 in the Senior womens, 2, 6 and 9 in the U13 girls, but unusually for AFD showing prominence in the male races with the scoring 3 finishing 1, 6, 12 in the Senior men, 8, 11, 12 in the Veteran men, 1, 2, 3 in the U17 men, 2, 3, 4 in the U15 boys and 1, 2, 4 in the U13 boys. All of which aided greatly in the overall results with AFD taking away the following medals from the Hampshire League 2016/17 season.

Men
Vets – Team Gold
Senior – Team Gold
U20 – Individual Silver (Non-Trophy Event)
U17 – Team Gold, Individual Gold, Bronze
U15 – Team Gold, Individual Bronze x 3
U13 – Team Gold, Individual Gold, 4 x Bronze

Women
Vets – Nothing
Senior – Team Gold
U20 – Team Gold (Non-Trophy Event)
U17 – Nothing
U15 – Team Silver
U13 – Team Gold, Individual Silver, 2 x Bronze

Well done to everyone who competed over the entire season, some great runs, a very fast one in the U17’s at Reading with Robbie competing the (claimed) 6km course in 17:19 with 6 AFD runners in the top 7 all finishing in under 18:30.

Congratulations to the top 10 boys who ran a very fast, very aggressive race in some quite difficult conditions.

1 – Robbie Coupland – AFD – 17:19
2 – Marcus Shantry – AFD – 17:21
3 – Max Heyden – AFD 17:33
4 – Chey Blatchford-Kemp – Reading AC – 17:55
5 – Lewis Reid – AFD – 18:02
6 – Ollie Percival – AFD – 18:18
7 – Sean Pocknee – AFD – 18:29
8 – Steven Cross – City of Portsmouth – 18:48
9 – Ethan Hartley – Basingstoke & Mid Hants – 19:10
10 – James Porter – Basingstoke & Mid Hants – 19:16

AFD U17 Mens – Team Strength in Breadth