On a snowy, boggy but at least sunlit Nunroyd Park, over 500 athletes, from juniors to internationals such as Ian Holmes (Bingley), gathered at the Yeadon venue on Saturday for the Nike Yorkshire Cross-Country Championships.

Nunroyd Park, the home of Skyrac AC who hosted the event, is a superb base for cross-country events because of the variety of terrain contained within its boundary and last weekend the icing on the cake was that overnight snow had produced a running surface including some challenging glutinous mud.

Event co-ordinator Neil Clayton designed three courses within the park to accommodate the different race lengths from 3K to 11K because the Championships consist of nine individual competitions.

The biggest field of 169 entered for the senior men's race which was won by Chris Cariss of Bingley who also took the team prize (six to count) with Andy Peace and Ian Holmes in sixth and seventh places.

Cariss won in the last 100 metres after a titanic tussle with former Horsforth resident, Martin Hilton.

Leeds City's Hilton set out to try to run the finish out of both Cariss and Otley AC's Ian Fisher but finally had to settle for the silver medal. Considering he has missed at least five weeks training this autumn, it was a pretty fair run.

Fisher took bronze to again secure selection for the inter-counties cross country championships in February.

Former Skyrac man Ian Mitchell (Tipton) foinished fourth bakc on home territory with Carl Thackeray fifth.

Leeds City's Greg Hull, of Yeadon, who had arrived minutes before the start, worked his way in typical fashion through to a fine 9th place, while Horsforth's Andy Beevers, in touch from early on, stuck with him and finished a place behind.

Ilkley's Tim Ashelford ran 41:00 and Phil Chappell and Ewan Welsh raced each other in 49:20 and 50:00 respectively.

The men raced over a snowy 12k route and a group of 4 broke away early on and maintained their lead to the finish. Otley runner Ian Fisher was part of this group and eventually finished third to again secure selection for the inter-counties cross country championships in February.

Other Otley finishers were: Neil Cayton (30th), Duncan Burgess (48th), Ray Hawksby (114th), Andrew Willis (120th), John Armitstead (123rd), Tom Hannah (150th) and David Hainsworth (160th).

Most Skyrac seniors were involved in managing the event but Alan Bye, Bob Pritchard and Malcolm Coles ran to represent their club.

The senior women's race drew 78 entries and was won by Anne Hoban (Wakefield) who led her club to the team prize. Local fell runners Jane Clark (Pudsey & Bramley) and Pauline Munro (Bingley) were fourth and fifth.

After another steady start Leeds City's Gill Keddie of Rawdon worked her way up to sixth place in pretty good company.

Ilkley's Sally Malir finished in 26:01 and new member Suzanne Bickerdike in 35:00 in her first ever cross-country.

Of the junior events Leeds City won the under-13 boys and under-20 men, whilst Skipton won the under-15 boys (four to count) with excellent packing as five runners filled the positions between 10th and 14th. Leeds City AC suffered from lack of size (which in the glutinous parts of the course made a difference), and from all being first-years in this age group. They were rather left in the early rush behind Bradford Grammar School's Horsforth-based Alistair Brownlee.

Alex Davy of Guiseley is a gritty little runner, and he made a lot of ground in the latter half of the race for 25th place. Robert Hall, also of Guiseley, also made up places to finish strongly in 33rd position.

In the under-20 men's race Skyrac had success with Joel Riley in third place, with Holmfirth placing three runners in the first four, and Nathan Tugwell taking 8th place.

Leeds City won the under-13 girls and Skyrac came sixth with the three Halls - Elizabeth, Rebecca and Eleanor - plus Rachel Cooper and Laura Griggs representing the host club. Only Lindsey Clark ran for Skyrac in the under-15 girls which was won by Hallamshire Harriers who were also winners of the under-17 women's event.

Otley Athletic Club

Six Otley Athletic Club members competed in the last race of 2002 - the Auld Lang Syne Fell Race from Haworth. The race of six miles with 900 feet of climbing took place in very cold weather with wet underfoot conditions.

Ian Holmes of Bingley Harriers led home the 400 plus finishers in a time of 35:26. The first Otley finisher was Andrew Robertshaw who finished fourth in 39:04. David Fox completed the course in 54:35 followed by Colin Best (54:43), Nick Hodgkinson (54:46), David Cattanach (63:49) and Bridget Barr who ran 69:58 in her first fell race.

On Sunday Otley entered four teams in the annual Harrogate Ringway Relay.

The first stage (women runners only) saw Helen Walsh of Otley's A team finish the two mile stage in 16:32 for 8th position. Caroline Marler was one place and six seconds behind for the B team while Ursula McGouran finished in 12th place for the D team with a time of 17:43. Jennie McKenzie for the C team ran 18:09 for 13th position.

On the second stage Peter McGouran (taking over from his wife) put in a very good performance to pass 4 runners for the D team as he clocked 28:07 for the 3.75 miles.

Colin Best also ran well to claw back one place for the C team with 28:26. Carl Walsh (also taking over from his wife) and new member Malcolm Court, running for the A and B teams respectively, went slightly off course but still ran well to finish in 7th and 10th places respectively. The changeover from stage two to stage three is where things went awry for the B team as David Hainsworth had not arrived in time to take over from Malcolm leaving Phil Robinson to run this stage instead of the intended stage four (he had about two minutes notice).

Neil Cayton (substituting for an ill Andrew Robertshaw) ran the difficult 4.75 mile stage three in a fast 30:26 passing two other teams en route. David Fox (C team) ran 39:39 also passing two teams while Antonio Cardinale dropped a few places during his 46:57 for the D team. Phil Robinson, for the mixed up B team, ran 41:02 before handing over to David Hainsworth.

Stage four saw Ray Hawksby move the A team up to 4th position with his fine 30:40 run over 4.25 miles. Dale Foster was the next Otley finisher (C team) with his fastest ever time of 26:56. He was followed by David Hainsworth (35:00 - B team) and Nick Hodgkinson (32:40 - D team).

By the time Ian Fisher started the final stage he was ten minutes behind the leading team and with only 5.25 miles of racing this proved an impossible deficit to make up even though he ran 31:29 to bring the A team home in third place (seven minutes behind a team from Ripon which had led for the whole of the race). The C team finished next with Andrew Sumner running strongly to record 42:10, over two minutes quicker than Tom Hannah ran for the B team. David Cattanach managed 47:36 to bring home the D team in 23rd position.