Young Laura makes a flying start to season

Many Skyrac runners competed in the annual Skipton open meeting on the long and difficult Aireville School courses.

Here pride of place went to Laura Kirk who won a very closely fought under-15 girls' race in the fine time of 17 mins.55secs.

The under-13 girls' team also came home with gold medals, benefiting from the acquisition of new members from the recently disbanded Parkside Harriers.

The gold medal trio were Gaby Rowell (3rd), Elizabeth Hall (4th) and Eleanor Hall (11th). Lucy Foxhall was 18th in this latter event and Rebecca Hall came 15th in the under-11 girls' race.

Woodhouse Grove School student, Jill Harrison (Keighley and Craven A.C.), also ran well for 17th position in the under-15 girls' competition.

Meanwhile at Carlisle, Horsforth schoolgirl, Bethany Staniland, represented Kingston upon Hull AC's under-15 girls' B team in the Nike North of England Three Stage Road Relay Championships.

Here, not only was Bethany's team sixth overall, but it was also the winning B team in this age group.

Several local athletes had also seen cross-country action during the week as the West Yorkshire district round of the English Schools' Cup was hosted by Leeds GS at their Alwoodley Gates course. Bethany Staniland, also of the Girls' Grammar School, Bradford, came third in the under-15 girls' race.

In the same age group Ilkley GS and Skyrac athlete, Vicky Gibbs, came fifth.

Two Skyrac under-15 boys also enjoyed successful afternoons at Leeds when Nick Howard (Bradford GS) ran a storming race for first place and Ian Clark (Leeds GS) came an excellent seventh. Staniland, Howard and Clark will now represent their respective successful school teams in the regional semi-final of the cup at Derby in mid November.

Skyrac Fellrunners

The Yorkshire Fell Race Championships for 2001 were decided last weekend at the seven mile Withins Skyline race run over the Haworth Moors.

Given the superlative record of Bingley's Ian Holmes over his favourite terrain no-one was surprised when he came home comfortably at the head of a field of 187 runners in 41 min 20 sec and exactly one minute in front of second placed Phil Sheard (P&B).

Winner of the ladies' race was 20 year-old Loughborough student Mary Wilkinson (Skipton).

Skyrac were represented by the two Grahams. Graham Grinstead displayed how cross training for triathlon events has improved his running by coming home in 65th in 53.53.

He achieved a rare victory over Graham Breeze who explained away his 95th place in 57.10 as due to jet lag having returned from holiday in China in the previous 24 hours.

Graham needed no excuses on the following day where he came in 13th (61.17) at the six mile High Brown Knoll race from Mytholmroyd collecting the runner-up Over 50 prize.

Leeds Bradford Tri Club

FOLLOWING a very successful racing season, including their own Ilkley Triathlon, which was highly praised by the competitors, Leeds and Bradford Tri Club have had an excellent end to the season.

They entered four teams in the Cleveland Relays where a 400-metre swim, a 38km bike ride in the form of a team time trial, and a 20km run (a leg of 5km each) were undertaken.

The open men's team of Paul Freeman, Tim Ashelford, Jack Maitland and Martin Roscoe won by four and a half minutes.

The men's veteran team of Nick Allen, Alan Judd, Graham Plews and Malcolm Cox was second. Their other two men's teams took sixth and 10th places, to round off a wonderful display of team racing.

Aire Centre Pacers

The meandering career of Mike Hildyard has taken some unlikely turns in recent weeks, having first achieved a personal best 41 minutes in the Armthorpe 10k, and then a wheezing 93 minutes in the Liverpool Half Marathon.

Unable to join his team mates for the Great North Run because he was stuck in the USA following the New York tragedy, Mike participated in the mass start of the Waltham 10k in Massachusetts. He finished in 42 minutes and was placed around 55th.

In the Harewood ten mile race the sylvan charms of the estate were lost on many runners as the thick mud proved more imposing.

Lurching out of the mire first for the Pacers was Richard Archer, who managed an eagle-eyed 80 minutes. He was followed closely by Paul Forkins and Chris Hill, and then Steve Horne. Candy Gable was the only lady Pacer in action.

Tranmere Park School

AFTER two races in the Leeds Schools Cross-Country League, Tranmere Park School lead both boys and girls under-11 leagues.

In the first race at Whitkirk Tranmere girls were second, a long way behind Woodlesford, but the tables were turned on Saturday at Leeds Grammar School.

The girls ran exceptionally well to finish in first place, 74 points ahead of the second placed team.

Philippa Kelly, having run well in the first race, improved her position in the second to finish sixth.

Eleanor Henson (14th), Ella Thorp (16th) and Holly Bovan (24th) were the other counting runners.

These girls were well supported by Laura-Jayne Thompson (68th), Jacqueline Ravensdale (81st), Lydia Leyland (123rd) and Kirsty Riley (131st) out of a total of 213 finishers.

The boys, having also finished second at Whitkirk, made further improvements and won Saturday's race from local rivals Bramhope.

Michael Truswell led the team home in 12th place, followed by Oliver Catherall (17th), Edward Hall (18th) and Ben Alton (24th). The following runners were Callum Fraser (37th), Nicholas Elliott (39th), Tom Bovans (54th) and Ben Jones (123rd) out of a total of 256 finishers.

Otley Athletic Club

LAST Saturday four Otley members took part in the Coniston 14 race in the Lake District. This popular road race around the lake had been rescheduled from early spring because of foot and mouth.

Ian Fisher won the race easily in a time of 1hr 15min and other Otley finishers were Steve Mann , Phil Robinson and Carol Armitstead.

The following day saw David Cattanach racing in Daventry over the unusual distance of six miles .

He recorded a pleasing 46.37 for 84th place in a race of well over 100 finishers.