St Swithun’s School welcomed almost 700 runners from 35 different schools to the Hampshire Schools Athletic Association Inter School Cross Country Championships.
The course took the runners through the school grounds and they were surrounded by the South Downs National Park in challenging weather conditions.
Each school provided a team of runners whose collective finishing positions contributed to their overall ranking. Year 9 athletes from St Swithun’s finished in 2nd, 3rd, 9th, 18th and 20th place to win the Senior Girls competition and be crowned Hampshire Schools Athletic Association champions.
Paul Boyd-Leslie, St Swithun’s head of cross-country, said: “It was great to see lots of smiling, muddy runners having fun on our school grounds whilst competing. There were some wonderful performances as well and all the runners can be very proud of themselves.”
This success for the St Swithun’s team comes on the back of a strong result for their intermediate cross-country athletes at the English Schools Regional Finals earlier in the month. Many of the same runners contributed to a second place overall finish to qualify for the National Finals, to be held in December in Sheffield.