Dan Dell
REMEMBER Zola Budd, the waif-like South African, who wore British colours at the 1984 Olympics and whose claim to fame was her glorious sliding tackle on Mary Decker in the 3,000m at the Los Angeles Games?
Zola, now Zola Pieterse who lives on her parents' farm in Bloemfontein with her mother, husband and three children, is also best remembered for training barefoot on the South African veld, and twice winning the World Cross Country Championships without an ounce of leather on her twinklies.
Well step aside Zola, and welcome Stubbington own twinkle-toed champion, Dan Dell, who was Shoeless Dan at the latest round of the Wessex Cross Country Championships in Devizes, Wiltshire.
For the second year running, Dan lost his shoe and finished the under-17 race barefoot. According to team captain, Andy Simpson, conditions were not clever. "They were true to form with drizzle and deep mud," he said. "The organisers had employed shoe recovery people this year."
SGR's numbers for the race were severely depleted because of the Stubbington 10km Race earlier that day. The club failed to put out a ladies team, and just managed two men's squads - unlike some clubs such as Newbury who fielded six senior men's and two senior ladies teams.
Dan managed to finish in 15th position in a time of 23min 52, followed by Daniel Payne in 16th (27:17) and Lloyd in 17th (28:25) as the Stubbies placed sixth.
The senior ladies were represented by Mags Smith who had a good race to finish 27th (31:31). Caroline Watts turned up and would have competed had Stubbington been able to field a three-strong team, but instead did her duties of looking after the kids.
She let husband Graham struggle around the muddy conditions for 80th place in 49.04.
The senior men finished 13 th with Andy Simpson, Ian Smith and Andy Phipps making up the men's team and a veteran's team consisting of Ian, Andy P and Nick Crane.
Andy Simpson ran the morning's 10km, finishing 39th in 36min 41sec, and four hours later he placed 20th in the cross country in 33:06, running four minutes quicker than last year over the same course.
Ian Smith was 49th in 37:17, followed by Andy Phipps whose 38:58 gained him 59th spot, and Nick Crane was little more than half a minute behind in 39:22 for 61st.
The next race is at Avon Heath Country Park, St. Leonards, Ringwood on February 6th. Details and a map will be posted on the website shortly.