CITY of York Athletic Club’s under-13 girls won their West Yorkshire Cross Country League team event as racing returned for the first time in a year and a half.

The coronavirus pandemic enforced a halt to much organised sporting activity, and cross country racing was no different.

But runners were back on the start line at Cleckheaton on Sunday for the league’s first race, and the York girls did their club proud.

They were led home by Lucy Gilbertson in second place with Isabel Madden in sixth and 19th-placed Annabelle Coxon completing the team.

Both the U15 girls and boys teams came third, led home by William Chalk in eighth and Katarina Savkovic in ninth.

The leading runners in the senior races were Therese Jansson (25th) and Steven Asquith (21st) but the club did not have enough runners in these races to complete a team.

A spokesperson added: “The weather was good, the course not too muddy and it was great to be back cross country racing after 18 months.”

City of York also had seven runners taking part in the London Mini-Marathon, which brings together some of the best junior runners from across the home nations to run the last 2.6km of the marathon course.

Shorter than usual, the stretch took runners from Temple Place to The Mall.

Lottie Langan was the leading runner from the club, finishing seventh in a time of 8 minutes 48 seconds in the U15 race as she helped the Yorkshire team to a strong finish.

Other runners from the club featuring in the race were U17s Gianluca Mastrolonardo (24th in 7:41) and Charlie Wright (41st in 7:56).

Representing the U15s were Isaac Stabler (22nd in 8:18), William Keens (52nd in 8:35) and Amy Kennedy (37th in 9:16).

For the U13s, Daniel Campbell finished in 27th place in a time of 9:03.