Cross Country Champions

Bournemouth School was recently featured in the School Sports Magazine following our Inter Boys’ success in the National cross Country championships. 


[The] Narrowest victory of the championships went to Bournemouth School in the U15 boys’ intermediate final – and it could hardly have been closer.

Just eight points split the first four teams after a thrilling race with Bournemouth pipping London’s St Paul’s School by two points, Perse School by one more and Yorkshire’s Silverdale School another five points back in fourth.

None of Bournemouth’s runners finished in the top 20, but they ran as a team with Oliver Newton (24th), Ben Shawyer (27th), Finn O’Mahoney (28th) and Henry Forsyth (31st) seeing them home.

PE teacher Patrick McCalister said:
“We had reached the final at Leeds in 2022 so we were aware of what the course layout was and that training could be adapted to suit it.

“Our junior boys finished seventh that year and then fifth at Woodbridge in 2023. We knew we had a strong team and the target was definitely a podium finish. However, so much can happen on the day, you can’t be overly confident.

“The team train together at school and are very competitive with each other. But they love being part of a team and pushing each other. We actually lost one of our team two days before the race but it was amazing that his replacement finished in 39th and I think shows the depth we have in that age group.

“We started quite nervously and it took a bit of time to settle. But gradually the boys started working through the field and finished really strongly with all six runners placing inside the top 40.

“We were maybe expecting one or two inside the top 20 but the standard is incredibly high and, although a number of teams had two runners inside the top 20, it takes something really special to back that up and get a really low score.

“To become the first boys’ team from Dorset to ever win a national cross country final is an amazing achievement and certainly made the six hour journey home a lot easier.”