Energy Vision Cross Cup, Roeselare – 27 October 2024
The Senior Ladies Team – Holly Dixon (Cambridge H), Jessica Gibbon (Reading AC), Sophie Tarver (Wirral), Holly Weedall (Vale Royal)
A lovely sunny day greeted us upon arriving at the course. This Belgium Cross Cup being one of the original races when the series was set up in 1982/83 and until this weekend the only Senior British athlete to win this race was Roger Hackney in 1988. We can now add a lady to the list with Jess Gibbon in the Senior Ladies race.
The course was a tight twisty course with a double humped section in the middle of the lap. The senior ladies were due to run 7.6km a start lap plus 4 large laps. Unfortunately for the senior ladies an error occurred in the lapping which meant they ran a lap less than expected. This caused a lot of upset amongst the Belgium and Dutch athletes due to it being a championship race.
The race set off at pace from the gun with the Belgium Roxane Cleppe creating a considerable gap in the first 300M this was followed by Jasmijn Lau of the Netherlands, Jess Gibbon and Silke Jonkman of the Netherlands. Holly Dixon was sitting close behind with Sophie Tarver and Holly Weedall in the next group. The positions stayed the same for the next couple of laps with Holly Dixon moving in front of Jess for part of the 2nd lap and Ineke Van Koldman moving through to the front pack.
The bell rang going into the 3rd lap and the England girls where aware of the mistake as we had noted where the lap counter and the bell were situated when walking the course. Jess decided to push on and split the group up and finished strong with a 3 second win over Ineke Van Koldman. Jasmijn Lau finished fast taking third place.
Holly Dixon finished a respectable 5th place closely followed by Sophie Tarver who worked through the field to finish strong in 9th place. Holly Weedall ran a great race to finish 16th in her first cross country race as a Senior for England.
