St Mary’s Athletes Dominate at BUCS Cross Country Championships

Athletes from the Endurance Performance and Coaching Centre (EPACC) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham finished as the most successful team at the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Cross Country Championships.

St Mary’s were the only university to medal in every race at this year’s event, which was hosted by Brunel University, winning six in total with three individual medals and three team medals.

The Men’s A team won Gold in their race with four of the six athletes finishing in the top 13. Emile Cairess also won individual bronze in the race with Paulos Surafel coming 10^th, Ellis Cross 12^th, Liam Burthem 13^th, Petros Surafel 24^th and Abdi Sharif 31^st.

In the Men’s B race Luke Prior eased to victory to pick up individual Gold, winning by 16 seconds, and also collected team Silver with fellow St Mary’s athletes Daniel Jarvis, Elliott Dorey and Thomas Butler also putting in strong performances. Daniel finished just outside the medal places in fourth with Elliott coming 13^th and Thomas 14^th.

First year Sport Science student Phoebe Law collected two Silver medals in the Women’s race with her second place finish helping St Mary’s to another team Silver. Strong performances from fellow athletes Emily Hosker-Thornhill, who finished 4th, and Lilly Coward, who came 24th, ensured St Mary’s picked up a team medal in every race of the championships.

Director for Sport at St Mary’s Andrew Reid-Smith said, “I’m delighted to see the hard work of the athletes and the Performance Coaches come together to produce such excellent performances.  The BUCS Cross Country Championships is hotly contested and St Mary’s athletes performed really well against the very best university opposition.  Hopefully we’ll see more success this season with 12 St Mary’s endurance runners selected for the Commonwealth Games.”