The men’s team finished in 4th with the women’s team finishing in 9th, both surpassing previous bests, a feat that pleased Swansea’s club captain Richard Mann.

“The teams put in a great performance at Braid Hills,” said Mann.

“Both the men’s and women’s teams achieved their highest team positions in years.

“We also had quality individual runs from both Dewi Griffiths and Ceri-Anne Santos.”

Dewi Griffiths starred as he was crowned the men’s champion eclipsing the previous Swansea best of twelfth; held by Ross Macdonald.

Griffiths completed the race in 31.26, a whole minute ahead of his nearest rival.

Edinburgh-based James Waldie finished second with Cambridge runner Sullivan Smith completing the podium places.

In the women’s race Ceri-Anne Santos finished in a very respectful 23rd, Swansea’s fourth ever quickest time, with Leeds-based Lucy Crookes winning the event.

The fastest in Swansea women’s history is held by Holly Lawrence who finished in 6th in 2009.

The annual pilgrimage to Edinburgh for BUCS due to its popularity with many university teams in Scotland, Wales and England competing.

The course features fierce uphill and steep downhill sections which makes the event a tough feat for any competitor.

Mann admitted the course is “one of the toughest of the season” that Swansea compete at.

He had his mind set on coming to Swansea University after hearing about their politics and history courses.

“I attended Iowa State University which sent, and as far as I know still sends, a fair amount of students to Swansea University for study abroad semesters,” he said.

“As part of my undergrad studies I had a lot of interest in European politics and history so that was a big part of drawing me to study in Swansea.”

Larson is targeting a career in law, having graduated from Iowa State, and is currently studying at the University of Notre Dame Law School.

He had experience of running prior to his time at Swansea University, and felt it was “just natural” to do the same once he arrived in Wales.

He said: “I did run for Iowa State. Jon Brown [1996 European Cross Country Champion] ran there for a couple of years.

“But I was kind of in over my head; I ran some insane workouts but never raced to the level of most of my teammates.

“But once I was [at Swansea] it was just natural to run with the running club, and the Swansea Harriers [local running club], as much as possible because of my interest in running,” he added.

Larson thought the running club provided a welcoming atmosphere throughout his time in Swansea.

“There were about 20 to 30 students active in the club at the time.

“We went to the pub with the club once a week after our runs.

“We also had a big end of the year party that we took a bus to.

“There were a handful of foreign students in the club, and all the Welsh and English runners did a really good job of making us feel welcome.”

One of the races that remains bright in Larson’s memory was the Braids Hill race, which is the annual cross country race that takes place in Edinburgh.

Swansea frequently sent a large group to the event, and Larson remembers his time in Scotland fondly.

“I’m pretty sure we were fourth out of nine scoring teams.

“I was our second runner in, I think I was 34th in a time of 35:48, for some reason Braids is one of those races that I just  remember really well.

“With our third and fourth place guys close behind me and our top runner being pretty far ahead somewhere in the top 10 overall.”

Larson recalls the team were always up for an adventure back in his day, with one moment in particular that is etched into his memory.

“After the Braids race had finished, we snuck into the park surrounding Arthur’s Seat.

“That involved climbing at least one fairly impressive wall.

“I don’t think we reached the top because whichever way we would take, eventually it led us to a pretty much sheer grass/rock face.”

The next Braids Hill race takes place on November 10.

For the original interview  visit the Swansea Trotters website which can be found at: http://swanseatrotters.wordpress.com/

Swansea had two impressive performers in the gentleman compound tournament as Phill Dunn finished third with 31 gold shots and David Leach finished fifth with 26 gold shots.

Alex Tappenden finished ninth out of 29 in the gentleman barebow.

Swansea’s experienced women top performer was Victoria Moore whom finished 23rd out of 63 with 11 gold shots in the recurve competition.

The novice category saw Swansea’s archers record an 18th place finish out of a possible 36.

Mark Evans came 23rd out of 93 with 10 gold shots in the gentleman recurve, Alaba Baju finished ninth out of 22 in the gentleman barebow, while Anna Lawrence was fifth in the nine-person lady barebow event.

In the experienced category, Swansea finished 24th out of 43 competing universities.

Jason Yiu won the three-person gentleman compound event with a gold shot total of 21.

Novice archer Yiu praised the team’s performance over the weekend.

“It was a great weekend and the team achieved some fantastic results,” he said.

The club competition will run alongside the current Bucs league to give teams the ability to compete on a more regular basis.

Captain Victoria Hope said: “Basically we are going to do as we do for Bucs.

But because our second team has not been entered into Bucs, we have formed our own mini-league.

“The league will consist of Gloucestershire, Aberystwyth and either Bath or UWE – we are waiting to confirm which one.

“It is quite good as we are expanding our range of university competition.

We haven’t played Bath or UWE before, so it’s exciting to compete against someone different and to travel further afield.”

As the league is not being run through Bucs, the AU cannot fund the competition, so the club have been raising funds through cake sales.

The Swansea leg of the competition will take place on March 14, combining show jumping and dressage on the same day.

Hope added: “Unlike Bucs we are going to pick our own horses, as normally you pick out of a hat, so people will get to choose and get used to them.”

Griffiths finished sixth out of 318, and was 51 seconds off the pace of Birmingham University’s Jonny Hay who won the race.

“I can’t really complain,” he said. “It was a much stronger field that it was a year ago.”

“Hopefully next year I can go even better, and get into the medals.”

Griffiths still finished higher than last year’s competition in Birmingham where he came seventh.

Swansea’s women failed to make the top 100 but Meg Brickell was the shining light for the team.

In Brickell’s first Bucs cross country championship, she achieved the quickest time for Swansea University.

Brickell said: “I’m pretty surprised to be honest that I achieved the best finish.

“We have some really committed female athletes on the team and I hope we can achieve even better results [later this year].”

She was 4m 51sec off the pace of Birmingham’s Hannah Walker, but finished 45 places better than anyone last year.

The final race of the day was the Bucs men’s B race, and Swansea saw two of their running team make the top 100, with Jimmy Wilson and Daniel Bodman finishing 70th and 86th respectively.

Students from the university were involved in three races during January which included two league meetings and one national event.

Dewi Griffiths took part in the Bupa Great Edinburgh Cross Country, producing a fantastic result finishing in third in the under-23 race.

A day later the third fixture of the West Glamorgan League saw the men’s race supremely run by Mark Roberts, who led from the front and bravely held off the other 103 competitors to take first.

He finished the race in a time of 34 min 31 sec.

This impressive achievement was Roberts’ second win of the season.

Sixteen teams took part and overall the men’s team finished eighth.

In the final meeting of the month both the men’s and women’s teams were invigorated by the return of several key runners.

Cerri-Anne Santos finished the highest for the women’s team with a 14th place finish.

In the men’s race, Roberts was looking for a second consecutive victory but was denied, finishing in only fifth.

He was one minute off the pace.

The next race is in Neath, but the date is yet to be confirmed.

Edinburgh University won both team events with Swansea finishing 11th in the women’s event and 13th in the men’s.

Edinburgh also came out on top in the individual events with Claire Ward from the ‘HBT’ running club coming in at 18min 34sec.

The nearest Swansea competitor to her was Verity Ockenden who finished in 20min 7sec. Emily Relton was next inside 21 minutes, and Rachel Edworthy at 24min 4sec.

The men favoured slightly worse in their inidivudal scoring, with Emrys Penny finishing 20th with a time of 35min 39sec.

Ashley Harper and Thom Bowerman were the next fastest for Swansea, but were both outside the top 30 places.

The winner of the men’s race was again an Edinburgh local, Niall Sheehan from Lasswade athletics club with a time of 32min 35sec.

The annual event, which took place on November 12, had 349 runners in all disciplines.

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After impressing the Welsh selectors, Phill Dunn, David Leach and Rhodri Curnow are obviously pleased at the prospect of representing their country.

Both Dunn and Curnow have been called up before but it is a completely new experience for Leach.

“It’s not really sunk in at the moment,” he said.

“It’s recognition for all the work I’ve put in over the last couple of years.”

The sentiments are shared by his fellow compatriot Dunn who said: “After picking up an outdoor championship last year, it’s a relief that after all the effort I’ve put in, it has finally paid off.

Hopefully it will lead to being picked to start and not just a place in the development squad.”

After success last year, Dunn will be looking for a similar performance to strengthen his claim for a starting place.

Curnow on the other hand has had a tougher time in the last year with his studies taking priority, and was grateful the selectors took this into account by selecting him.

“Being a student I couldn’t afford to get to a lot of the shoots,” Curnow said.

“So it was a case of making the impact on the ones I could attend.

“I thought it was quite nice that they took into account that I couldn’t make many of the bigger ones.

“I think last year what prevented me was just that I couldn’t get to the tournaments.

“Next year I don’t have that kind of issue as I’m graduating.”

After graduation, Curnow is setting his sights high.

Curnow added: “The big thing for me is the Commonwealth Games.

“I want to make an impact in order to get to the games, but of course, the next step is to get my next senior cap.”

Their time with the Welsh development squad will be a real test of their abilities and with championship credentials among them, they have a real shot at being selected for upcoming matches.

Wales Officer Training Corps (OTC) members Sarah Kelland, Scott Thompson, Alice Maclennan, Hannah Meinertzhagen and Alex Henderson completed the Neath Valley triathlon on September 25, with the money raised going to ABF:’The Soldiers’ Charity’.

The event in Glynneath is aimed at novice level, but with the group only having a few days to prepare for the 400m swim, 22km bike ride and 3km run, completing the circuit was no mean feat.

Conditions on the day were not ideal either with the group having to battle through the wind and rain to get to the finish line, but their OTC training paid off as all five finished within 1 hour 40 minutes.

Kelland said the support the group were able to give each other was vital.

“We all set off at different times which meant we were able to give each other plenty of support , and everyone did really well,” she said.

The triathlon was just the first event which the Swansea coy of the OTC will be using to fund raise for ABF this year.