Surrey Cross Country League - last match of 2014-15 season in Richmond Park

Last weekend (Saturday 7 February) saw the last of the four races in this season's 2XU Surrey Men's Cross Country League Division One, hosted by Ranelagh Harriers in Richmond Park. Kent A.C went into the match as a more or less dead cert to win the championship, having won all three previous races. And indeed they went on to hold on to the trophy for the third year in a row, even though on the day they were pushed into second place by Thames Hare and Hounds.

The match was an uncanny rerun of the same fixture last year, also won by Thames H&H at Richmond Park, with Kent A.C. second but winning the League. And in both 2014 and 2015 the individual race was won by Paskar Owor of Belgrave Harriers with a 17 second gap between him and second finisher John Gilbert (Kent AC). The first five of 174 finishers last week were:

                                        

   1. Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers)  

   2. John Gilbert (Kent AC)  

   3. Chris Greenwood (Kent AC)   

   4. Kevin Quinn (South London Harriers)

5. Ryan Evans (South London Harriers)

(full 2015 results here) 

Paskar Owor (in hat) on his way to his third victory in Surrey League this season.

The course was over two laps, 5.65 miles in total, at the Petersham end of Richmond Park. After some of the muddy hills of previous fixtures, it was a bit of a breeze with a nice long descent to start with along a track known as the Queen's Ride. If anything I could have done without spikes as parts of the course were quite gravelly underfoot.

I ran for Kent, although I didn't come close to scoring in my three outings in the League it was great to be on the fringes of a winning team. As well as winning the senior men's League, the club's Alex Yee won all four races in the under-17s races and will be one to watch when he moves up to run in senior competitions next year. The women's team also had a good start in their first season in the League, with some strong performances.

(see Kent AC report here)

Surrey League trophy 

After tea and cake in the Ranelagh Harriers clubhouse in Petersham, we retired to the White Cross, a fine riverside pub in Richmond, to celebrate.

Kent AC celebrate League victory in the White Cross

1947:  French cross country runners get lost in Richmond Park

Ranelagh Harriers did a good job of organising the race last week with enough marshals to make sure there was no repeat of this incident from 1947: 'Three members of the Paris University team took a wrong turning in a six-mile cross country race with London University in Richmond Park'. They were found two hours later having run eleven and a half miles!

See previously:

Farthing Down Surrey League Cross Country, October 2014

South of the Thames Cross Country, Wimbledon Common, November 2014

Surrey League Streatham Common Cross Country, January 2015

Richmond Park 10k, August 2013 (plus some Richmond history)

The Art of Athletics (3): Jindřich Heisler

Jindřich Heisler (1914-1953) was a Czech surrealist poet and artist. Half Jewish, he hid out out at a friends' apartments in Prague for much of the 1940s Nazi occupation to avoid deportation to the death camps. During this time he produced a diverse body of work in very challenging circumstances - interestingly a couple of the images he produced feature running figures. As he was rarely able to go outside I wonder whether for him the runner represented freedom and/or his condition as a man on the run.

Untitled [Running figured pursued by bird], from De la même farine (From the Same Dough), 1944. Gelatin silver print with hand-applied color.

In this untitled work from c. 1943,  Heisler has attached a spring/toy foot to a photograph of an athlete  - making a kind of prosthetic leg.

Friday Photos (3): Running in Tel Aviv 1942

On a Rosh Hashanah tip, this week's Friday photos come from Tel Aviv in 1942. I came across these images at the US Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Catalog (there's more here). They were taken at a United Services Athletic meeting at the Maccabiah Stadium on Sat. May 2, 1942. 

The Stadium was built in 1932 for the Maccabiah Games, the international Jewish athletics event. Come the outbreak of war,  Italy had bombed Tel Aviv in 1940, and by 1942 Nazi forces commanded by Rommel were heading towards the Suez Canal from North East Africa. Hence the presence in Palestine of  personnel from across the allied forces, chiefly from Britain as the colonial power there but also from the United States and elsewhere. 

An article from that year in the Jewish Telegraph states: 'American soldiers on the Middle Eastern front are the latest to enjoy the hospitality of Palestine’s “Service Clubs,” which are the Holy Land’s version of the U.S.O., according to a report received here today by the United Palestine Appeal. The “Service Clubs,” whose welcome mats have already been trodden by thousands of British, Fighting French, Polish, Czech, Yugoslav, Dutch and Belgian troops, as well as Palestine’s own Jewish fighters in the Allied forces, are subsidised by U.P.A. funds. The clubs furnish information, arrange parties, dances, sightseeing trips, sports, etc., and even provide home-cooked meals at the homes of Jewish families'.

So who took part in this United Services meeting in 1942? Certainly British military - note the Union Jacks draped around the side of the ground - and presumably Americans (the photos being collected at US archive). I wonder whether the black athlete in the photo below below is an African-American?

The winner of the 800m was J.V.Powell, pictured below in Tel Aviv. This was John Powell, one of the best 800m British runners of the 1930s - he ran in the 1932 (Los Angeles) and 1936 (Berlin) Olympics.. According to Track Stats (November 2007) 'Powell served in the Middle East with the RAF as a Squadron-Leader during World War II, being mentioned in despatches three times. He also organised sports competitions for the troops and managed some more running in 1941-42, winning Palestine titles at 800 and 1500 metres. After the war... He went to Iraq on behalf of the British Council and was instrumental in Iraq sending four athletes to compete in the 1948 Wembley Olympics'.  So perhaps Powell was one of the organisers of the Tel Aviv event. Note his Amateur Athletics Association vest in photo.

There were also Indian athletes - the caption to this photo says  'Centre figure Indian 'runner up' in a running race.

Given that the event took place in the Jewish sports club stadium I wonder whether local Jewish athletes also took part, possibly Palestinian Arabs too as both Jewish and Arab soldiers fought with British forces during the war. So what does the 'M' signify on the runner's vest in the top photo? I wonder whether it has something to do with 'Maccabiah' or the Maccabi Tel Aviv Sports Club, which started in the 1930s. Anyone know?

More in the Friday Photos series:

Tom Longboat: Canadian First Nations Marathon Runner
New York High School Runners 1970s

Alan Turing the Runner

Marilyn Monroe the Runner

Friday Photos (2): Alan Turing the Runner

Alan Turing (1912-1954) was a mathematician and computer science pioneer, famous for his 'Enigma' code breaking work during the Second World War and his postulation of the 'Turing Test' for artificial intelligence. Recently he has been the focus of a campaign to posthumously pardon him of his conviction for 'indecency' at a time when gay sex was illegal.  The conviction blocked his career and prompted his presumed suicide.

Turing was also a keen long distance runner, running for the Walton Athletic Club in Walton, Surrey. In 1947, he competed for Walton AC in the Amateur Athletic Association Championships marathon in Loughborough, finishing in 4th place in 2 hours 46 minutes and 3 seconds. In doing so he narrowly missed qualifying for the 1948 Olympics - his time was less than 12 minutes behind the finishing time of the1948 Gold medallist, Delfo Cabrera. One of his last runs for Walton was in the London to Brighton relay race in April 1950.

The photo below shows Turing running in December 1946, coming second in a race on National Physical Laboratory Sports Day (Turing worked at NPL at the time).  NPL is based on the edge of  Bushy Park (Teddington), and the NPL Sports Club has had its own grounds there since 1912. So it seems very likely that this race took place there. In addition it is recorded in biographies that he sometimes ran to work meetings while based at Bushy Park, so it's almost certain that he ran in the park. Bushy Park today is of course very popular with runners as the place where parkrun started out in 2004 - and where up to 1,000 people still run every Saturday morning.

In recent years, Ely Runners have held a Turing Trail Relay  - the 'six stage relay event is run on mainly opposite riverside footpaths from Ely to Cambridge (Jesus Green) and back to Ely... These attractive and interesting footpaths were once used for running by Alan Turing, founder of computer science, whilst at King's College, Cambridge'.

See also: Alan Turing Scrapbook

More in the Friday Photos Series:

New York High School Runners 1970s

Running in Tel Aviv 1942

Marilyn Monroe the Runner

Tom Longboat: Canadian First Nations Marathon Runner

New York High School Runners 1970s