Lewes vets storm home

Peter Masters led the team home, placing fifth in 45min 20sec for the six-mile course, while Mike Lane finished eighth in 47.05 and Dan Faulkner (12th) completed the scoring trio in 49.15.

The over-50 men's six-mile race saw a splendid run from Crowborough runner Roger Stone, who coped well with the sticky and difficult underfoot conditions to finish in seventh place in 39.13.

Barry Blackwell from Hailsham was two places further back in 39.30, while Colin Wibley from Lewes placed 12th in 40.02.

In the men's over-40 race, over the same distance, Hailsham's Paul Eccles led the field for the first 400 metres but eventually settled for a more-than-useful seventh spot in 37.07. Kevin Battell from Crowborough clocked 38.22 for 11th position.

Julia Westlake from Framfield kept her recent good form by taking the bronze medal in the women's over-35 four-mile championship although she is now in the over-45 age group. Clocking 26.36, Westlake had elected to compete in the younger age group to bolster her Brighton & Hove Club team, and she received a second bronze for that event.

For much of the race she had battled with Hailsham's Samantha Alvarez, who had to settle for fourth in 26.45.

The cold and misty conditions that enveloped Mid-Sussex on Sunday reduced visibility to little more than 50 metres for most of the racing, and we had not seen such poor conditions at a Sussex Cross-Country Championships since Hellingly's Peter Standen finished second in the Sussex Senior at the same venue in 1964.

That day visibility was down to 20 yards and it is generally thought that had Standen been able to see Horsham's Maurice Baker, the winner, he would have been able to outsprint him.

Last-minute illness, injuries and withdrawals seriously affected the Sussex teams in the South of England Inter-County Cross-Country Championships at Thetford in Suffolk.

Sussex Downs College's Emily Goodall was the highest-placed Sussex runner as she put in an excellent run to finish seventh, the only top-ten placing for the county.

Lewes's Natasha Collins had to withdraw from the team while fellow Lewes runners Belinda Norris and Becky Hawkes started but both had to drop out. Norris twisted her ankle while Hawkes has been nursing a thigh injury in recent weeks.

Lewes's Matt Basford repeated his fine form in the recent Sussex League event at Bexhill by leading the Sussex team home as he turned in a most impressive run to finish 16th, clocking 18.04 for the 4.3km course.

Fellow Lewes athlete Ashley Williams was a little below his recent form in the under-15 boys's race, finishing 43rd and the fourth Sussex runner home. Clubmates Matt Suter and Josh Burgess finished 50th and 73rd respectively.

In the under-13 girls's race Melissa Ruffell from Hailsham, making her debut for Sussex, placed 64th, the seventh Sussex runner home, while Beth Kidger from Maresfield, despite being determined to make her Sussex debut, had to return home before reaching the course as she was taken ill.