BAILDON Church, shortlisted for Student Team of the Year at the 2020 Bradford Sports Awards, impressed at the Bradford Primary Schools’ Cross Country Finals, with seven runners capturing podium finishes.

Cliffe Castle Park in Keighley played host to this year’s event, with over 500 pupils from 46 schools braving the challenging course in a bid to represent Bradford at the West Yorkshire games.

Schools from across the region, including Keighley, Bradford, Ilkley, Stanbury, Silsden, Bierley, Bingley and Oxenhope took part, running with pride and passion.

All the school teams, alongside wildcard runners, had earned their place at the event having been either one of the top two teams, or one of the top 15 individuals in their district.

The weather held fair and the turf was only slightly squelchy underfoot, leading to some exciting racing over the tough routes – one mile for children in years five and six, or 1.2 kilometres for those in years three and four.

All the runners did their schools proud and the honours were distributed across a variety of schools.

However, Baildon Church were the biggest winners. Not only were they the only school to have qualified teams in every age group from their local league, their year three and five boys were crowned champions.

This was down to a system where the top four runner finishes from each school were added together and whoever achieved the lowest score won the race.

Other schools also stood out, with Moorfield winning the year three and four girls' team events.

Burley Woodhead won the year six boys' event, Sandal the year six girls' competition, Crossflatts the year four boys' and Burley Oaks the year five girls' race.

Individual winners on the day were as follows:

Years 3-6 boys: Charlie Porteous (Burley Oaks), Toby Bentley (Crossflatts), George Marsh (East Morton), James Rosser (Silsden)

Years 3-6 girls: Ailsa Coulton (Crossflatts), Iris Smith (Ben Rhydding), Bethan Buckley (Harden), Imogen Atkinson (Birkenshaw)