Several of Trafford's young distance runners travelled to Wollaton Park in Nottingham for the National Cross Country Championships - an event with over 100 years of history.
On a relatively fast course there were more than 7000 entries in total.
In the U20 Men's race, Richard Powell had one of his best races to finish 25th with Jack Donnelly 128th.
However, pride of place goes to Zak Miller who won the U17 Men's race by 11 seconds. Zak became Trafford's first ever male National Cross Country Champion in the club's 50 year history. Coincidentally, this is the same park in Nottingham where Zak's coach, Paul Shaw, gained his first international vest 14 years ago behind Mo Farah. In a field of 272 runners, Zak was supported by Ryan Babcock in a solid 86th place and Chris Brown 135th.
In the U15 Boys race, Jake Lonsdale finished in an excellent 23rd place with Colin Daly 158th.
In the youngest age group, U13 Boys, Jack Wilkinson survived a fall at the start to battle through to 74th in a field of 385 runners.
On the Girls side, Beth Donnelly had her best race of the season to finish 27th in the U17 Women's race.
Danielle McMinn, always keen to race anywhere, finished 292nd in the U13 Girls race after suffering some of the worst of the mud splash.
(Neil Canham)

The annual county cross country championships were held at Leigh Sports Village last Saturday.
The U13 Boys team finished 4th with Jack Wilkinson an excellent 5th place, Raffi Quirke 12th & Drew Baker 29th.
In the U13 Girls race, Danielle McMinn was 24th, Marnie Mannion 27th & Siobhan Conway 38th. The team finished 9th.
The Under 15 Boys team won bronze medals with Colin Daly 5th, Josh La Manna 11th, Joseph Tang 20th in his first cross country race for Trafford and Mikey Kingston 22nd.
Issy Hopwood finished 32nd in the U15 Girls race.
Best performance of the day went to Danny Lawton who won the U17 Mens race by over a minute. He was backed up by Chris Brown in 5th place and Ryan Babcock 10th. This meant that Trafford retained the team championship for the 3rd year in a row.
As a result, Danny, Chris, Colin & Jack have all been selected to represent Greater Manchester in the Inter Counties Championships in Birmingham in March.

Congratulations to Jamall, Sandy, Issi, Laura, Isobel and Orli from our u11's who have all been selected to represent Greater Manchester in the u11 Fun in Athletics Regional Final.
The event will take place at Sportscity on Sunday 19th January.

Selection for the u13 & u15 County teams will take place following the County Championships on Sunday 26th January.

The overall results from this years Greater Manchester Sportshall League have been punished, and they've proved to be very good reading indeed for Trafford AC.
u11g - Finished 4th - identical to last year

u11b - Finished 3rd, missing second by 2 points! A big step up from last years 5th

u13g - Winners! Well done girls - great to retain this title from last season.


u13b - Winners! Perhaps the most pleasing turn round as we had very few lads turning out last season when we could only manage 7th


u15g - Winners! The core of last years victorious u13g team have moved up and dominated this league with the aid of a couple of last years u15's who'd finished 2nd


u15b - Finished 3rd, same as last year.

So congratulations to the u13 girls, u15 boys and u15 girls teams; and well done to all who participated.

We've had a few athletes undefeated in their events over the course of the three match series - Jamall (u11b) in both the 1 Lap and the Standing Long Jump; Joe (u15b) in the 6 lap; Josh (u15b) in the 4 Lap; Imojene (u15g) in the 4 lap; and the stand out performance is from George - unbeaten in all three events - 6 Lap, speed bounce & Standing Long Jump - over all three matches!

The County Championships is Sunday 26th January; those wishing to compete must inform us by Thursday 9th January

As a result of his performance in the European Cross Country Championships in Serbia last week, Zak Miller has now been selected to run for Great Britain Juniors against USA & Europe at the Edinburgh Cross Country International next month.

ZAK MILLER won the English Schools cross-country title earlier this year and is off to Belgrade this week as part of Britain’s team for the European Championships.   Yet until this year the 16-year-old from Manchester was better known for his exploits in the
boxing ring, writes Jason Henderson.
Miller is a five-time North West champion in boxing and in 2010 he won the national title. He reckons he’s ranked about No.3 in the country for his age and weight, but his athletics achievements are quickly overtaking his fighting performances.
Remarkably, Miller doesn’t turn 17 until March, which means he’s more than two years younger than the Euro trials winner in Liverpool last week, Jonny Davies of Reading.
Miller could have run the under-17 men’s race in Liverpool, but instead gambled on taking on older rivals in the under-20 race – and it paid off with fourth place and a guaranteed spot in the GB team for this weekend’s European Championships in Belgrade.
“After the national cross-country relays in Mansfield my time there led me to think I should go for it in Liverpool,” he says. “It was still a bit of a surprise to finish as highly as I did, though.”
Yet Miller is not entirely unknown to the cross-country community. In March he won the English Schools title at Catton Hall despite having a boxing coach, Wayne Heywood at Ashton Albion Boxing Club, but no one to guide his running career.
Now, he is coached by Paul Shaw at Trafford AC and his daily diet of long, steady runs has been improved by the addition of harder, quality sessions.
“I’ve been boxing since about 10 or 11 years of age,” he explains. “I think the training for each sport helps each other. They complement each other.”
But he adds: “My running is going so well that I’m putting it first at the moment.”
Miller also used to play centre midfield for Stockport County but kicked that into touch after seeing team-mates get so easily injured.
“I’d like to be part of the scoring team in Belgrade,” he says. “And then I’ll hopefully have a few more chances to do well in the event due to my age.”
Who knows, Miller could eventually become a “British Benson Masya”. The late Kenyan distance legend won the Bupa Great North Run four times in the 1990s, but he also began his sporting life in the boxing ring.

PS. Zak finished a credible 31st out of over 150 entrants in his race. The GB team just missed out on a team medal, finishing 4th. Zak will be able to compete in this age group for three more years and we look forward to seeing what the future holds!

ELLIE EDWARDS describes competing in the Maccabiah Games in Jerusalem this year as the best experience of her life.

The 16-year-old won the 200m and was third in the 100m in a multi-sport competition that features 9000 Jewish athletes from 72 countries.

“I enjoyed meeting Jewish athletes from all over the world,” the Trafford athlete says. “The opening ceremony was completely sold out with 40,000 people. It was incredibly emotional to walk out as a member of Team GB.”

As the only female athlete in the British team, Ellie was even more determined to perform to her best. She clocked a PB of 12.68 to take bronze in the 100m, before returning the following day to win the 200m in 26.19, just a fraction outside her PB set the month before.

Ellie later returned to win another bronze as part of a  mixed relay team.

Surprised by her success, she explains: “There are so many Jewish people in USA and Israel, they were expected to clean up the medals. I hadn’t expected to win any, especially as I was competing against 18-year-olds.”

Such was the standard across the events, Olympic finalist Steven Solomon from Australia did not even win the men’s 400m. The GB team only won two individual golds in total, one of which went to Ellie, and the teenager also claimed three of Britain’s 31 medals.

The event marked a special milestone in Ellie’s life and she was thrilled to be able to share it with the rest of her family. “I was so pleased that my mum and dad (Francine and Eddie) were there, together with my three sisters and two of my grandparents, as it really was an amazing experience,” says Ellie.

Ellie trains four times a week as part of a mixed sprint group guided by Tom Cullen and Iheani Ihediwa at Longford Park in Manchester.

“Everyone was so proud of my performances in Israel, which meant so much to me,” she says, “and I really want to repay them by staying injury-free and seeing my times plummet.”

Ellie started athletics in Year 3 after she realised she had a talent for running after winning her school’s cross country race and later taking top spot in the Manchester Cross Country Championships, a feat that no other pupil from her school had ever achieved.

Ellie had previously played football for several years, so she knew she had good speed. “Doing athletics gives me a sense of achievement and purpose in my life,” she says. “I enjoy the adrenaline rush and the tempo of sprinting. You need to be focused and strong all the way to the finishing line.

“Unlike distance running you cannot afford any mistakes. It can be incredibly cruel, but getting across that finishing line first or getting a PB makes everything worthwhile.”

Ellie is just starting A-Levels in biology, psychology, history and PE at Manchester High School for Girls, having recently attained eight A* and two A grades in her GCSEs. After she finishes school she hopes to study psychology or train to become a physio. However, Ellie’s biggest aim is to represent her country at a major senior athletics championship.

Having been lucky enough to be in the Olympic Stadium on Super Saturday last year, it is not surprising that Ellie names Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis as her favourite athletes, along with Usain Bolt.

“The Olympics really inspired me,” she says. “I want to get a senior GB vest in future.”

The u15 & u17 National Athletics Championships were held over the weekend of 31st August & 1st September at Bedford. 
There are qualifying standards for the National Championships, and for some events these are at a higher standard than English Schools. There were five Trafford AC athletes on show, the most successful being Zac Miller (u17b). 
Zac finished with a bronze in the 3000m to add to his English Schools bronze also at 3000m.

Tameika (u17g) qualified well from her 300m hurdles heat well in second place. In the final she went out hard and was in the mix coming off the bend into the home straight to finish just out of the medals in 4th place.
It was a less successful time for Chris, Will and Josh, but there time will come we're sure. Chris (u17b 800m) and Will (u15b 80m hurdles) both failed to qualify from their heats. Josh (u15b Long Jump) didn't jump as well as he had being doing earlier in the season and finished in 9th place.

Saturday 14th June saw the final fixture in this years YDL (Lower) competition. 

Unusually for Wigan it was a beautiful day - ideal for sprinting and jumping and this was reflected in the performances - over 40 PB's were recorded by Trafford Athletes on the day.

As ever it seems these days the sprint hurdlers got us off to a fine start with wins for Jameelah, Emily, Kim, Will and Rivi. Leila finished third after bravely picking herself up from a nasty fall and still finishing the race, so it was particularly pleasing to see her knock 0.4 off her 75m time for a new PB.

In the sprints we also saw Rivi go below 12 seconds for the first time in the 100m - new PB 11.8. Molly (75m & 150m) and Jameelah (150m) continue to post new sprint PB's, as did Ronnie & Will in the 200m. It was also good to see Danielle, on debut posting some pleasing times.

It was in the Long Jump pit that we really saw the benefit of the fine weather - six PB's out of six jumpers. Kelise in her first ever competition for the club went to the top of the club's u13 girls Long Jump rankings with a jump of 4.22; Molly went over 4m for the first time with 4.08m. in the u15 girls Zalika and Lili have been chipping away at their PB's all season - so it was no great surprise for them to continue in this vane and add 13cm & 9cm respectively to now stand at 4.75m & 4.54m. Delroy & Rivi both chipped in with new LJ PB's too to finish the set.

Congratulations and well done to all Trafford AC athletes who took part in last Sunday's fixture in the Cheshire League.
This fixture is probably the largest team competition that Trafford host and we had over 80 athletes turn out for Trafford.
There were also large teams from West Cheshire and Colwyn Bay in particular, along with Dash, East Cheshire and Stockport making up the rest of the teams and contributing to a very busy day.
This competition is ideal for giving athletes competitive experience and we had a high number of Trafford AC debuts which was great to see - the first of many we hope.
This is also the only competition where all members of the club get a chance to compete in the same competition and this was demonstrated by Trezeguet being the youngest to Ian Scholes (v55) competing.
There were far too many fine performances to name them all - 59 PB's in total.
As ever, thanks has to go to those who helped out by officiating - we'd be unable to attend these events without their help - Rashida, Linda, Neil, Tom, Cecil, Jane, Beryl, Mims, Byron, Lucy and David - many thanks, and a special thanks to Peter for a highly efficient job with the results.

Results on Powerof10Website