Strathpeffer athlete Hamish Hickey is focussed on earning a place on the Great Britain under-23 men’s team for this year’s European cross country championships in Ireland.
The Euro event is to be held on a purpose-built course at the Sport Ireland Campus near Dublin on December 12.
Hickey, who celebrates his 21st birthday later in the month, is in his final year at Stirling University where he is working towards a degree in film, media and sports studies.
Two years ago the Central AC runner was named as a non-travelling reserve for the GB under-20 side which competed in Portugal and he’s determined to make up for that near miss when he competes in the trials at Liverpool’s Sefton Park on November 27.
He said: “The top five at Liverpool will be selected so I’m going for that and I just hope I don’t lose out like last time. It’s a good target to aim for whatever happens.
“There’s a Scotland team to be selected for Liverpool and I hope to be included in that, but regardless, I’ll be there. It’s also the trial race to determine which team will get into the European clubs championships, so Central AC will have a big squad taking part.”
Hickey is looking forward to getting some regular racing under his belt after a summer season which generated some good results despite the limited competition opportunities.
He set a personal best 5,000m track time of 14min 32.58secs in Glasgow and clocked a fine 14:20 on the road at the Inverness Campus 5k.
Hickey said: “I didn’t have much of a track season although I was happy with my 5k. Since then I’ve been getting ready for cross country.
“I’m going to get some good races under my belt before Liverpool so I’ll be competing in the Scottish 4k championships at Lanark on November 6 and I’ll try for a win at the Scottish Students championships in Edinburgh on November 20.”
Hickey kicked off his cross country season by helping Central AC win the Scottish 4x4k relay championships at Scone Palace.
Olympic Games 5,000m runner Andy Butchart was also in the Central quartet along with Ben McMillan and Jamie Crowe.
Hickey said: “It was a good team result and we were very consistent as there were only about four seconds difference in the times each of us recorded. There’s such great depth in the club at the moment as was shown by our B team finishing in second position.
“We’ll also have a strong squad for the Lanark race next month so hopefully we can do well again. Personally, I’ll be aiming to get as high up as possible against the seniors.
“I’ve heard it’s quite a flat and fast course which is the opposite of what I like for cross country, so it will be interesting.”
Prise is right into top five
Kerry Prise moved into fifth position in this year’s Scottish women’s marathon rankings after setting a personal best time in the Netherlands.
The Aberdeen athlete recorded 2hr 50min 55sec to finish 11th in the women’s division of the Rotterdam marathon won by Kenya’s Stella Barsosio in 2:22:06. Prise’s previous best was 2:52:34 when she was second in the 2019 Baxters Loch Ness marathon.
Prise said:”I am very happy as it was a bit of an unexpected result. But it was a very special run as my partner, Idwer Stolk, is from Rotterdam and I’ve spent a lot of time there since March 2020.
“It was great to run in the marathon after a year and a half delay. We crossed the finish line together. It wasn’t planned, it just worked out that we were running at the same pace.”
Four Aberdeen runners are now in the Scottish top ten for the year with Metro’s Ginie Barrand lying fourth following her PB 2:49:42 at Manchester earlier in the month while her clubmate Claire Bruce also achieved a PB of 2:53:30 at the same venue to occupy ninth spot in the rankings. Another Metro member, Nicola MacDonald, is 10th with the 2:56:10 she clocked at Loch Ness.
Aberdeen-born Shona Crombie-Hicks (Tewkesbury) is 11th with 2:56:37,Catriona Fraser (Inverness Harriers) sits in 12th spot following her 2:58:02 at London and Kirsty Mitchell (Metro Aberdeen) is 14th 2:59:57
Olympian Steph Davis tops the table with her 2:27:16 set in the Tokyo trials at Kew Gardens in March.
Kelly and Kirk claim top honours
Neil Kelly (Metro Aberdeen) and Tim Kirk (Inverness Harriers) have been crowned British masters champions in their respective age groups after producing impressive performances in the Yorkshire marathon.
Stonehaven-based Kelly, 58, won the 55-59 age division in a personal best 2hr 47min 05sec while Kirk took the 75-79 award when clocking 3:30:32.
Both men also won the Scottish masters titles earlier in the year when competing at the Strathearn marathon in Perthshire.
Kelly has been running since he was 15, initially purely for fun and general fitness, and he didn’t tackle his first competitive race until 2014 when he was 51.
He ran his first marathon at Loch Ness in 2016, completing the course in 3:43:09. Incidentally, his son Jason was well behind that day, recording 4:06:30.
Jason has since gone on to become one of the north-east’s top distance runners and earlier this year won his first international call-up, finishing second for Scotland in the Anglo Celtic Plate 100k.
Kirk has an impressive sporting CV having been the cox of the Great Britain men’s eight rowing team which finished 10th at the 1968 Mexico Olympics.
The 76-year-old, who relocated from southwest England to Inverness almost 18 years ago, ran his first marathon at London in 1982. He also won age group titles in this year’s Blackpool and Loch Ness marathons.
Meanwhile, Ross Gollan (East Sutherland AC) helped a relatively inexperienced Scotland team finish in a creditable 10th position behind winners France in the Trofeo Vanoni international mountain running relay race in Italy.
Gollan was joined in the Scotland team by international debutants James Dunn (Corstorphine AAC) and Rory Abernethy (Ochil HR).