Athletics: Edinburgh Uni teams claim Cross Country glory

Edinburgh UNIVERSITY captured both team titles in the Scottish Student Cross Country Championships at St Andrews.

Rhona Auckland and Steph Davis finished second and third respectively for the Capital students and, together with Megan Crawford, who was fifth, they easily took the team medals ahead of their B team. The winner, former Commonwealth Youth Games 1500 champion Morag MacLarty (Dundee University) was so concerned when she saw the state of the course that she nearly did not run.

“The course was awful – it was a rutted, stubble field and I didn’t want to risk more injury,” said the 25-year-old dentistry student who came back after a 15-month gap to win the Scottish 4k title in Glasgow two weeks ago. But, after talking to coach Liz McColgan, MacLarty decided to compete and won easily. “We decided I’d still run but take it steady so I didn’t get injured and I went out for a hard run later.”

MacLarty covered the 6.4k course in 23 mins 36 seconds to defeat Auckland, 24:44, and close third Davis, 24:46. Shettleston Harrier Lachlan Oates (Glasgow) was the men’s winner over 10 kilometres, finishing in 35:55, with Mauro Lanfranchi (Aberdeen) second in 36:56 and Andrew Christy (Edinburgh) third in 37:12.

Christy, James Waldie (4th) and Arjuna Sivakumaran (7th) gave the Edinburgh men a winning 22 points.