St Mary’s RC High School, Lugwardine, hosted the annual Hereford District School’s cross country competition recently and the athletes were lucky enough to run in beautiful sunshine and near perfect conditions underfoot.

John Kyrle High School’s athletes won four medals on the day, with Otto Mendelsson, who is 16-years-old, improving on his third place finish in last year’s event by winning the Senior Boys race, with George Aubrey close behind him in second place.

In the girls competition, Zoe Whitehouse took third place in a closely contested Junior Girls race, while in the Junior Boys event, Jake Ashly claimed a well-deserved second spot. Alongside these medal winners, the top 16 Junior finishers and the top eight Intermediate and Senior finishers have been selected to go forward to represent Hereford Schools at the Hereford and Worcester Schools Cross Country Championships at Worcester University, Top Barn on Saturday, January 19th.

This means that the remaining ten John Kyrle High School athletes who will represent Hereford Schools include Mitchell Thomas (11th) and George Ratcliffe (14th) of the Junior Boys and Emma Smith (15th) and Faith Robbins of the Junior Girls.

In the Intermediate Girls, Katie Smith (4th), Emily Hayes (5th), Niamh Hickey (6th) and Imy Seal (7th) and in the Intermediate Boys Harry Ratcliffe (7th) and in the Senior Boys Josh Gawin-Brian (7th).

Staff and students at John Kyrle will be wishing them the best of luck for the next round of races in the New Year.