THE recent Devon County Cross Country Championships proved a happy hunting ground for atheletes across all ages from Tavistock AC as they competed at Exeter at the start of December.

In November, the Cornish qualifying athletes had enjoyed great success, with two county champions, several other medallists and qualifiers to represent Cornwall at the prestigious Inter-County events in the new year.

The first event saw both the under-17 boys and senior ladies races. Despite a niggling hamstring injury, Tavistock Olympian Heather Fell was able to book a qualifying place by coming through the field to take a brave fifth place.

The U17 men's race started the medal haul for Tavistock as the in-form James Best ran a superb tactical race to take the silver medal. After early help from Tavistock's Cornish champion Sam Lane De Courtin, James took the lead going into the last mile, only a late burst from Plmouth's David Weir was to deny him gold. With fine supporting runs from Harrison Baker in 11th and Pete Jarman in 15th, the Tavistock team also collected bronze.

The following race, for under 13 boys saw a Tavistock debutant go one better. In a constantly changing race, four youngsters battled all the way for the medal positions, only separated by two seconds. Despite clocking the same time as the second placed Exeter Harrier, Tavistock's Lachlan Fulton was the victor. Harry Herdman raced well to take eighth with Jamie Crocker-Valeron close behind in 14th.

The under-15 girls race was dominated by two Plymouth AC athletes, the second of which was local runner Emily Ackford.

For Tavistock, the ever-reliable Emily Atfield was never far behind, running strongly to take the bronze medal, followed by club-mate Mollie Rickwood, who also took a top-ten finish in ninth.

The under-15 boys proved a much tougher race for relative newcomers William Dax and Henry Ware.

William just missed out on the top-ten, in 11th, with Henry taking 16th place.

The last and biggest race of the day was for the senior men over a punishing 8.9K course made even muddier by the runners from all the previous races.

First finisher was once again Jim Cole, working his way towards full fitness after a season littered with injuries. Jim was less than a minute behind the winner in sixth place.

While Cole battled near the front, over-50 veteran Tony Symons ran a strong race to take 21st overall and only missed the gold in his age group by eight seconds after closing down the eventual winner in the final stages.

The next finishers were also veterans — Rupert Warren in 31st and Charlie Lloyd in 43rd.

Together with Symons, this trio took the silver medal in the veteran team competition.

49th went to Owen Drage, followed closely by Allan Herdman in 51st, winning a bronze medal in the over -55's category. With six finishers required for a senior team, Cole, Symons, Warren, Lloyd, Drage and Herdmann had taken sufficient points to secure a creditable third place and bronze medals .

Further down the field, age-group medals continued to come Tavistock's way. Tavistock's second county champion of the day would be the superb Bob Chapman, who thrashed his closest rival in his over-65 category by an enormous eight minutes as he finished in 53rd.

After Richard Best finished in 55th, Tavistock's final finisher and medallist was youth coach Robin Musgrave who took the bronze in his over-60 category with a 61st placing.