The Finsbury Park-based athletes celebrate clinching the cross-country title

THERE were hurrahs for London Heathside this week after the club’s senior women’s team was crowned champions of the Metropolitan Cross-Country League for the fourth season running.

The fifth and final race of the 2021/22 campaign at Trent Park on Saturday was cancelled as storms swept across the UK.

But Heathside had already done more than enough to defend their title having won three of the previous four Division One meets.

The Finsbury Park-based club were led to glory by Beth Hawling, who won all four races with a series of scintillating runs.

And the victories on race days three and four came with extra bragging rights, too, as Hawling got the better of another of north London’s highly rated long-distance runners in the shape of Highgate Harriers’ Hannah Viner.

Other Heathside highlights included Tamara Armoush finishing second, behind Hawling, on race day two in Welwyn. The club almost clinched a top-three finish but Brogan Wallace ended up fourth after being narrowly beaten across the finish line by Laura Kaye from Victoria Park Harriers & Tower Hamlets AC.

Wallace did, however, eventually bag a bronze medal position when she finished third on race day four at Wormwood Scrubs.

Heathside’s haul didn’t stop at the Metropolitan Cross-Country League title. The senior women’s squad also scooped a set of silver medals from the South of England Cross-Country Championships recently, once again led home by Hawling, who claimed an individual bronze.

Meanwhile, back in the Met League, there was also success for Heathside’s senior men’s team, who finished third overall.