By REDintern Romaine Soh
Tan Wan Xin (#2290) of RI came in fourth in the U-20 category with a time 15:46.05 to help RI clinch the team title. RI runners took the top 4 spots. (Photo 1 © Joseph Lee/Red Sports)
Bedok Reservoir, Saturday, March 9, 2013 — Raffles Institution (RI) maintained their dominance in cross country by clinching both the boys’ and girls’ titles at the Wings Cross Country Championships well ahead of the second placed teams.
In the Under-20 boys’ category, Karthic Harish Ragupathy from Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) denied RI the satisfaction of producing an individual champion in addition to clinching the team title, blazing the 4.3km trail to win in 14 minutes 7 seconds. This achievement reinforced his position as the top schoolboy in the A Division, after proving himself at the Singapore Athletic Association (SAA) and Swift Cross Country races.
Heng Yujie of RI finished in second place with a timing of 14:30, a good 23 seconds behind Karthic. This huge gap further highlighted Karthic’s dominance in the long-distance events.
Marcus Ng of Victoria Junior College (VJC) had put in a last-minute surge, overtaking Bryan Yong of RI in the process, but narrowly missed overtaking long-time rival, Heng Yujie, of RI. Yujie’s signature fast finish proved to be too much, leaving Marcus to settle for the bronze with a timing of 14:36.
Having revamped its team, VJC clawed its way back to the top three, beating HCI by 10 points to bag the team silver. In last year’s National Inter-School Championships, HCI had been ranked second while VJC had finished sixth.
In the Under-20 girls’ category, the RI girls reigned in the competition by dominating the top four positions, with only Chew Simin from VJC and Ling An from HCI separating the ranks of the six RI runners.
The RI girls seem set to wrest the A Division title back from HCI, who were crowned champions at last year’s National Inter-School Cross Country Championships with the lowest possible score of 10. Team points are calculated based on the top four runners of each school.
RI had made known their prowess in the earlier cross country races organised by the Singapore Athletic Association (SAA) and Swift, scooping up all the team titles. However, VJC and HCI had not competed in those races, allowing all six of the RI runners to sweep the top six positions with ease.
VJC bounced back into the top three teams this year, finishing just two points ahead of HCI. VJC’s teacher-in-charge, Mr Tan Yew Hwee, was extremely pleased with their performance. “I’m very happy for the team, especially since most of them do not have much experience running cross country.”
With such a strong showing at the penultimate race before Nationals, it will be indeed interesting to see how the results turn out. The National Inter-School Cross Country Championships will be held in less than two weeks at Bedok Reservoir, on Wednesday, March 27th. The first race will flag off at 9am.
U-20 Individual Boys Results (4.3km)
1st Karthic Harish Ragupathy (Hwa Chong Institution, #1375) — 14 minutes 07 seconds
2nd Heng Yujie (Raffles Institution, #1388) — 14:30
3rd Marcus Ng (Victoria Junior College, #1410) — 14:36
4th Bryan Yong (Raffles Institution, #1393) — 14:39
5th Jonathan Tan (Raffles Institution, #1391) — 15:02
6th Joshua Nga (Raffles Institution, #1390) — 15:03.1
7th Justin Tan (Victoria Junior College, #1412) — 15:03.4
8th Ryan Tan (Victoria Junior College, #1413) — 15:04
9th Everest Yeow (Raffles Institution, #1392) — 15:07
10th Tan Yuchuan (Hwa Chong Institution, #1376) — 15:13
U-20 Team Boys Results
1st RI Team 1 — 17 pts
Heng Yujie (2nd), Bryan Yong (4th), Jonathan Tan (5th), Joshua Nga (6th)
2nd Team Balake — 29 pts
Marcus Ng (3rd), Justin Tan (7th), Ryan Tan (8th), Julian Tang (11th)
3rd HCI A Boys Team 1 — 39 pts
Karthic Harish Ragupathy (1st), Tan Yuchuan (10th), Joel Ng (12th), Chua Boyu (16th)
U-20 Individual Girls results (3.6km)
1st Jolene Quek (Raffles Institution, #2289) — 15 minutes 15 seconds
2nd Janielle Lim (Raffles Institution, #2288) — 15:28
3rd Adeline Bee (Raffles Institution, #2285) — 15:34
4th Tan Wan Xin (Raffles Institution, #2290) — 15:46.5
5th Chew Simin (Victoria Junior College, #2301) — 15:46.9
6th Ling An (Hwa Chong Institution, #2272) — 15:48
7th Daphne Chia (Raffles Institution, #2286) — 15:58
8th Mary-Lisa Chua (Raffles Institution, #2287) — 16:06
9th Valerie Chua (Hwa Chong Institution, #2271) — 16:14
10th Abigail Sim (Victoria Junior College, #2309) — 16:19
U-20 Team Girls Results
1st RI Team 3 — 10 pts
Jolene Quek (1st), Janielle Lim (2nd), Adeline Bee (3rd), Tan Wan Xin (4th)
2nd VJC 1 — 43 pts
Chew Simin (5th), Blossom Tan (11th), Aleena Kua (12th), Sean Olivia (15th)
3rd HCI Girls Team 1 — 45 pts
Ling An (6th), Valerie Chua (9th), Nicole Lum (13th), Yeo Xin Yi (17th)
2013 Wings Cross Country Championship — full results
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