Matt Willis And Jake Heyward Edge Towards GB Showdown

By Rob Cole

A massive battle is brewing in Welsh athletics to find out who is the best junior cross country runner not only in Wales, but potentially in the UK and beyond.

Sefton Park, Liverpool will be the venue for the big showdown between north Wales’ finest, Matt Willis, and Cardiff’s rising star Jake Heyward on Saturday, 24 November.

That’s when the British trials for the European Cross Country Championships take place with both men trying to make the junior team.

Willis, who has already been crowned ITU World Duathlon junior champion this year and went to the Gold Coast to take part in the World Triathlon Championships, warmed-up with a comfortable victory in the British Athletics Cross Challenge in Milton Keynes last weekend.

Where Heyward had led in the opening round on home soil in Cardiff, Willis provided another Welsh masterclass in round two.

Last season’s English Schools champion, Willis opened up a 10-second lead to leave Southampton’s Zak Mahamed trailing in his wake.

Jake Heyward. Pic: Owen Morgan

Heyward, meanwhile, was making sure Wales reigned in Spain by winning the junior race at the Cross de Atapuerca, in Burgos.

Heyward won by eight seconds from England’s highly rated Rory Leonard, who was the third British athlete home behind Willis at the International Schools World Championships in Paris in April.

Heyward covered the 6,000 metres in 18 min, 17 sec.

In the senior women’s race in Spain, British international Charlotte Arter produced a strong performance to finish ninth with Welsh team mate Jenny Nesbitt next across the line in 20^th.