ROYTON’S Evan Grime was the runaway winner of the Greater Manchester Schools’ Cross-Country Championships.
Evan, 11, who was representing Oldham, won the primary schools’ race at Heaton Park by a margin of about 70 metres in a field of 170 runners.
“Evan set off from the front and stayed there finishing well ahead of the rest of the field,” explained proud mum Jill.
It is the latest in a lengthy line of successes for the Royton Hall Primary pupil.
Evan has won the Oldham Schools’ Cross-Country League for two of the last three years.
And he has been victor in all three of the races he has competed in the latest league.
Evan, who has been a club runner for Salford Harriers since the age of eight, is also the winner of the 2019-20 Manchester Cross-Country League which attracted runners from through the North of England.
The successes are not confined to cross country as Evan is also quick on the track and was the 2018 and 2019 Greater Manchester Under-11 schools’ champion at 600 metres.
Evan has been selected to run for Greater Manchester in the inter counties championships in Loughborough in March.
This was selected from the Greater Manchester championships in December where he competed against boys two years older than him as they did not have an U11’s race. The top eight were selected and he finished eighth, the only primary school pupil in the race.
Evan has clearly inherited the running gene as his parents Ian and Jill were also accomplished athletes.
Ian, who went to High Barn Primary which was on the site of Evan’s school, competed for both England and Great Britain at 1,500m and 3,000m.
He began running with Oldham and Royton Harriers and later competed for Loughborough University and the renowned Newham and Essex Beagles.
Ian, 49, still competes for Salford Harriers where he has also coached the juniors for seven years and recently has taken some senior athletes under his wing.
On the day Evan won the Greater Manchester Schools’ Cross-Country Championship, Ian, who still runs twice a day, also competed at Heaton Park where he triumphed in the parkrun.
Jill also ran for Oldham and Royton Harriers and Loughborough University where she was club captain and competed at both cross country and 400m.
Evan’s sister Erin, 16, is also a successful athlete.
An Oldham schools’ champion, she was third in the Greater Manchester championships U17s 1,500m in 2019 and competed for Greater Manchester over 800m in the northern inter-counties.
When Evan competes for Greater Manchester next month, all four members of the family will have run for the county in inter-counties competitions.