Following his excellent 16th place in the trials for the Great Britain junior squad for the European Championships, Blackheath Harriers, Bromley ath- lete Andrew Rayner was rewarded with selection for a South Of England representative team to race in the Belgian Cross Cup races in Roeselare.

The meeting also doubled as the Belgian trials for the European Championships, guaranteeing another high quality race with Rayner eventually finishing 25th in 22mins 44secs.

He was not the only Harrier in action, as a number of his clubmates travelled at their own expense to Belgium to taste European competition.

William Bolton ran well in the race coming in 32nd in 23:06 and Chris Daniel, who was probably one of the youngest in the field, timed 25:58.

His time was not far off his father Ken's 25:39 in the veterans race where he finished as sixth over-50 athlete overall. Con Griffin was 15th in this veterans race and was also third in the over 45s category and like Daniel was the first Briton home in his age group.

Meanwhile, many club members were in action at the annual mob match against Orion Harriers at Chingford.

The Harriers found themselves outnumbered but, nevertheless, provided two individual winners. Roy Smith won the 7.5-mile race by over one and a half minutes in 47:18 despite going off course on two occasions. He also won the club 7.5-mile championship title which was incorporated into the race.

John Morland was behind in fifth overall with Dave Ellison eighth.

Sixth scorer for the club and 16th in a race of 105 finishers was Jennie Butler, whose time of 53:44 saw her over eightminutes clear of the next woman home.

Anne Cilia was next home for the club in 84th in 69:56, with Sarah Cummings 94th in 74:48.

Athletes from the club feature prominently in the recently published under-17 men's rankings. Pride of place went to Karim Chester, No.1 in the hammer with 60.52m. Fabian Collymore is 16th in the top 100 sprnters with 11.0secs and 12th in the 200 with 22.49.

Ian Allerton is 19th in the 400m rankings with 50.70; Andrew Johnson 13th in the 100m hurdles with 13.97; and Tom Robinson 11th in the pole-vault with 3.80m.

November 27, 2001 12:14