SEMINGTON runner Will Stockley completed a great week with an emphatic victory in the BUPA Junior Great South Run.

With his confidence high from winning the junior race at the BUPA Great Birmingham Run the previous weekend, Stockley secured a superb double in a top quality race in Southsea on Sunday.

“Last year I was second in the Great South race so I was determined to win it this year. I sat in the group in the early stages of the race and then when it turned back I went really hard and left everyone else behind,’’ said the Melksham Oak School student.

“By the finish I had a 20-second gap so I was able to cruise through the line.”

Stockley, a member of Team Bath AC, clocked 7mins 38secs for the 2.5k race, five seconds quicker than over the same distance the previous weekend.

He will now return to his training programme for the next month with his next big race the Wiltshire Schools’ Cross Country Championships on December 6 and the Avon, Somerset and Wiltshire clubs’ championships the following weekend.

  • HOLLY Rush’s verdict on tackling France’s most prestigious ultra distance event, the Templiers Endurance Trail in Millau, was unequivocal.

“It was 74k of hell!” said the Bradford on Avon international, who was representing Europe in the elite race which incorporated 3,450 metres of climbing.

“I basically lost it in the last eight kilometres, where there was technical climbing using ropes. I hit the wall big time. I also missed the last water stop so ran out of gels and water.

“I was in fifth and got taken in the last 2k – there was nothing I could do, the legs wouldn’t respond. I am happy with seventh though with this high level of competition. But I do need a rest now – I am ruined.”

Rush finished in 8hrs 25mins 33secs.

  • TROWBRIDGE’S Caitlin Wosika finished sixth in the U15 girls’ race in the Bristol Cross Country meeting at Ashton Court. Brother Jack Wosika was 16th in the U13 boys’ age group.

Westbury-based Hayden Bailey was runner-up in the U15 boys’ race with James Welbourn 16th.

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