THE rise of Tavistock Athletics Club in the region took yet another step this weekend at the South West cross country championships. In an event covering the whole of the South West as far as Avon and Wiltshire, Tavistock's senior men took second place, beaten only by Bristol and West AC – one of the country's foremost clubs. Fielding a mixture of seniors and veterans, Harry Wiltshire (15th), Peter Freedman (16th), Jim Cole (18th) , Martin Exley (26th), Richard Drage (38th) , Chris Champion (47th) and Tony Symons(57th) were all in fine form over the 8km course at Bicton, near Exeter. Whilst the first five finishers provided the points scorers for the team, all seniors and veterans made top 15 places in their categories, with an in-form Exley losing out on an unofficial 45-49 category victory by a mere 15 seconds. The event also included the South West inter-counties championship with many Tavistock runners representing Devon, and two others representing Cornwall and Somerset. Top junior performances went to two Tavistock sisters. A team gold medal went to Sam Fraser in the U17 girls' race where Devon took overall first and U13 Claire took an excellent 10th place in her race. Local resident Bob Chapman, representing the Royal Navy, began his 60plus category career in tremendous style. In a close battle, his overall 87th position was enough to give him the South West title by 13 seconds from his nearest rival. Other Tavistock results:U13 girls, Sarah Hornby, 24th; U13 boys, Sam Eaton, 27; Ben Brown, 42; U15 girls, Rebecca Windemer,19; U15 boys, Tom Lawson (Somerset) 12, Nick Champion, 24, Matt McNamara-Waddington, 45, Owen Drage, 60; U20 girls, Suzy Blandford (67th in combined Senior/U20 ladies race); senior ladies, Heather Fell, 22. Further afield two Tavistock runners — Adam Holland and Pete Bazeley — competed in the Walt Disney Marathon in Florida, USA this weekend. Adam finished in the top 500 men and top five U20s in 3hrs 39 mins with Pete just following in in 3hrs 40 to take 25th place in the 50-54 year category.
