Richmond borough performed exceptionally well in the London Mini Marathon at the weekend with the under17 boys finishing as the second top team overall in the country.
The junior marathon, which took place before the full London Marathon, attracted hundreds of boys and girls from all over the UK, all running the last three miles of the main event.
Across three different age groups- under13, under15 and under17- five boys and girls from each of the London boroughs were selected to compete, along with a further five runners from each of the other regions in the rest of England and representatives from Scotland, wales and Northern Ireland.
To qualify, entrants have five weeks to take part in an official Park Run, with the fastest runners selected to represent their borough. This year, competition was intense to qualify for the Richmond team, in particular for a chance to represent the under17 boys.
A heavily oversubscribed category, the under17 boys team eventually comprised of Harry Vincent, Zak Wort, Greg Atkins, Reef Boericke and Sam Reynolds.
Junior wheelchair athletes were the first to start on race day, before the under 17 boys took centre stage at 8:55AM.
An adrenalin fueled start saw boys race off before settling into a rhythm around the 1km down mark.
The race took runners along Embankment before bending right in front of Big Ben and into The Mall for the final mile. Spectators lined each side of the iconic stretch leaving no athlete short of motivation to push on to the finish.
Toby Osman of Yorkshire led the field home in an incredible time of 14:25, but remarkably the borough of Richmond finished as the 2nd highest borough overall in the category, driven by strong sub 16:30 finishes from Harry Vincent, Zak Work and Greg Atkins.
This was Richmond’s most successful category on the day, contributing to yet another highly successful mini marathon campaign for the borough.
Harry Vincent, Hampton School
