WILL Christofi has paid tribute to his teachers at Dauntsey’s School for the part they played in helping him win his first Great Britain vest, WRITES KEVIN FAHEY.

Christofi spent six years at Daunstey’s before winning a place to study Classics at Oxford University and while much of his sporting time was spent playing hockey in the winter and cricket in the summer, his love of running was also spotted and nurtured by the staff, in particular Alistair Sheffield and Emma Crozier “At Daunstey’s I played a lot of hockey and cricket but I was keen to keep up my running and a couple of teachers were very supportive in that,” said Christofi.

“It was hard at first to fit it all in but I really wanted to do it myself so I would often do a hill session early on a Saturday morning then play 80 minutes of hockey in the afternoon.

“But both Mr Sheffield, who was a good runner for Team Bath at the time, and Mrs Crozier encouraged me and made sure I entered all the school competitions.

“They helped to keep me going and I have recently been in touch with them both.”

Christofi will link up with the GB team at Heathrow on Thursday to fly out to the Italian island of Sardinia where the European Cross Country Championships will be staged on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Ruth Barnes wound up a great year on the road with yet another personal best and a thumping victory in the Bromham Xmas Pud 10k.

Victory in Bromham for a fourth successive year on Sunday was hardly a surprise for the 38-year-old Trowbridge mother as she had warmed up by shaving three seconds off her PB in the Aztec West Fast 5k the previous Wednesday.

Her swift time of 16mins 41secs is the third quickest in the 2016 South West rankings and easily the quickest in the veterans over 35 age group and it raised the prospect of Barnes attacking her best of 34mins 15secs in Bromham just four days later.

She missed that target but not by much as Barnes finished third overall from a field of 416 runners in a sizzling time of 34mins 28secs, which is the second fastest of her career.

As a measure of Barnes’ progress this year, the Bromham race, which has become one of the most popular events in the county, provides an excellent guideline as twelve months ago she won in a PB of 35:31.

“At this time last year, I could not believe that in 2016 I would be running under 35 minutes,” added Barnes.

“Now I have done that this year the goal for 2017 is to try and run inside 34 minutes for the first time.

“I would love to give that a big shot as I am not getting any younger and it really feels like now or never.”

Overall winner in a time of 34mins exactly was Team Bath’s Ewen Malloch, who was racing the event for the first time.

“It is a nice, mostly flat course and well organised and I was delighted to win,” said Malloch.

Harry Palmer of Athlos Triathlon was runner-up (34:06), with the Avon Valley Runners pair of Barnes and then Mike Rose third and fourth (34:53) respectively.

Hardenhuish School student Cameron Perkins was fifth and first junior in a PB of 35:01.