PARTICIPANTS were greeted with a fresh afternoon for the annual St Petroc's Cross Country event on Friday, February 6.

16 schools from across Cornwall and Devon entered the cross country with 260 children running over 4 races.

The races kicked off at 1:30pm with the U9 boys being started by the new head teacher, Mr Daniel Thornburn. The boys from Blundells led from the beginning and maintained the pace to achieve first place results in both the team and the individual categories. Runners from Lew Trenchard also ran a particularly good race achieving podium places in the team and individual events.

Next was the turn of the U9 girls. This race was run with great enthusiasm from the start line but it was Truro High that took the glory in this category winning the first place position for the individual event and second place for their team.

The U11 boys had a chilly wait for their race start as the afternoon progressed at a good pace. This time the course consisted of two laps of the Summerlease Downs with all the U11 taking on the challenging hill and undulating straights twice! After a well fought race there were winners from a number of the schools including West Buckland, Orchard Vale, St Joseph's, Plymouth College, Blundells and Holsworthy.

For the full report, and a round-up of the area news and sport, see this week's edition of the Post.