52nd National Schools Cross Country Championships 2011 — Girls preview

By REDintern Soh Rui Yong

As the school sports season heats up, one of the most anticipated national finals in our local sports scene lurks just around the corner.

Once every year for the past half-century, the fittest student-athletes from all across our nation come together to match their endurance, speed, and wits against each other at the National Schools Cross Country Championships. This year’s championships will be held at Bedok Reservoir, with the first race starting at 9am.

With less than a week to go before the championships, let us have a look at the potential title contenders, and the mouth-watering clashes that lie ahead.

C Division Girls — Three-horse race

If recent form is anything to go by, it will be a three-horse race between Cedar Girls’ Secondary School, Crescent Girls’ Secondary School and defending champions River Valley High School for the C Division girls team championship. The three teams finished first, second and third respectively at the two pre-nationals competitions, namely the Singapore Athletic Association (SAA) Cross Country Championships held in January, and the Wings Cross Country Championships in February.

Before winning the title last year, the River Valley girls had been a non-factor in the sport of cross country ever since their previous triumph in 1993. Established local cross country coach Mr Steven Quek took over the reins in late 2008, and they have since improved from strength to strength, winning the team championship last year with five runners finishing in the top ten, and have become a force to be reckoned with in the school running scene.

2008 Champions Cedar Girls’ finished runners-up at last year’s nationals, but will be heading into this year’s competition as the favourites, coming off the back of victories at the SAA and Wings cross country meets. Top runner Lok Xin Ying will also be aiming to complete a hat-trick of gold medals, having been the individual champion at both the above-mentioned races.

The Crescent Girls’ team, meanwhile, will be hoping to end an 11-year wait for a championship, and add to the two titles they won in 1994 and 2000. With a gifted squad that has been hot on the heels of the Cedar team this season, this could well be the year to end their drought.

B Division Girls — Cedar vs River Valley

Defending champions Cedar have found the going tough this season, managing only fourth place at the SAA Cross Country championships, but fared much better at Wings, finishing second to River Valley by a single point. Top runner and reigning B Division girls 3000m champion Cheryl Chan appeared to be struggling with a leg injury earlier this season, but was seen to be coming back to form at Wings, where she narrowly outsprinted River Valley’s Su Zann to first place in a close finish, clocking a 17 minutes 31 seconds for the fourkilometre-long route to Su Zann’s 17:32.

River Valley, having won both the SAA and Wings meets, will be going into the nationals not short on confidence, and undoubtedly hoping to end Cedar’s two-year stranglehold on the B Division crown. Meanwhile, 2010 C Division cross country champion Nicole Lum will lead dark horses Singapore Sports School’s campaign to hopefully score an upset over the favourites.

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