England Virtual Relay Winners
The winning team of the National Round of England Athletics' Virtual Road Relay Competition in 2021 have been announced.
A total of 1,026 runners from the 50 qualifying clubs competed in the National Round, following on from the 2,455 runners from 128 clubs who had competed in the previous Qualifying Round.
As overall winners of the National Round, Wirral AC will now progress to represent England in the International Round – taking on the best teams from the other Home Nations of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland on 19-22 March.
Joining Wirral AC on the virtual podium were City of Norwich AC and Aldershot, Farnham & District AC who took third.
The top 4 team runners for Wirral AC were:
TJ Jones (handicap -2.3) (24:46)
Ethan Brady-Jones (handicap -1.3) (24:51)
William Strickley (handicap -2.1) (25:23)
Daniel Hayes (handicap 0.6) (26:28)
Sophie Tarver (handicap 0.1) (27:11)
Keira Brady-Jones (handicap 0.5) (27:43)
Emily Kearney (handicap -0.3) (27:43)
Ellen-Mary Kearney (handicap 3.2) (28:34)
The team broke the virtual finish tape with a collective time of 3:32:39, followed by City of Norwich AC in 3:33:00 and Aldershot, Farnham & District in 3:33:09.
John Heap, Chairman of Wirral AC, was thankful for the competition opportunity and said: “This is a fantastic achievement of which our coaching team and young squad should be incredibly proud. Wirral AC is only four years into a development programme designed to revive the club, a team-based approached to coaching has allowed us to quickly scale-up and integrate new athletes, new coaches and create new opportunities in the sport. We have had no access to a track or other facilities for 12 months but the relay result shows the enthusiasm of the club with nearly 40 athletes taking part. The strength building in our women’s team can be clearly seen, and with the development of our men’s team on the same trajectory, but two to three years behind, we believe the best is yet to come.”
Many congratulations to everyone at Wirral AC and good luck with the upcoming international representation!
The fastest senior individual times came from Phil Norman (handicap -3.6) with 23:02 and Hannah Irwin (handicap -0.2) in 26:56
Individual times via this link
Final Team Listings here
UK runbritain rankings for endurance events and age groups
Other results from the weekend are on the following links: