Sol Sweeney and Jemma Reekie show their short cross country class at Scottish Championships

Andy Young landed the scottishathletics Performance Coach of the Year award one week prior to the Lindsays Scottish Short Course XC Championships. That was for his high profile work with Laura Muir  but also  with Jemma Reekie  and  Sol Sweeney. Reekie  and  Sweeney each took their first Senior XC titles over the 4K distance in massive domestic fields. 

Sweeney(handicap -5.3) won a rapid men’s race from Inverclyde’s Adam Craig (handicap -5.0) and Michael Ferguson (handicap -4.2) with a run of 11.32 for the 4K distance. It was certainly a course which favoured athletes with track and road prowess – with no hills, little mud and less wind for the Senior races .

Adam Craig had set a fast early pace with Sweeney waiting until the final kilometre, before finally shaking off the challenges to win by four seconds with Craig at 11.36 and Ferguson at 11.40.

Gold medallist Jemma Reekie (handicap -1.7)  clocked 13.07 to win by two seconds from Morag Millar-MacLarty (handicap 5.6). Bronze medallist Steph Pennycook (handicap 0.0) was a further 10 seconds back but led Edinburgh University to that team win, backed up by U20 gold medallist, Anna Macfadyen (handicap 2.0), as well as U20 bronze medallist, Constance Nankivell (handicap 3.1).

‘I’m thrilled to win my first Senior gold,’ said Jemma.

‘I guess I’ve kept it ‘in the training group’ since Laura has won this the last three years. I would love to have raced her here today but she has her own training programme at the moment and of course that’s very important. We’re off to South Africa at the end of next week and we will take it from there come the indoor season.’ 

Results are avaiable via this link.