Shaw plays his part in GB team win (From The Northern Echo)

Shaw plays his part in GB team win

10:00am Tuesday 10th January 2012 in Athletics News By Frank Johnson

NEW Marske Harrier Mark Shaw won an individual bronze medal as North-East athletes helped Great Britain win the overall team prize in the BUPA Great Edinburgh international, which saw a shock defeat for Ethiopia's double Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele.

Shaw, part of the junior Great Britain gold medallist team in the European Championships in Slovenia last month, figured prominently, leading after two laps of the 6K race before losing out to America's Ethiopian-born Kirubel Erasson by only three seconds.

Two other New Marske Harriers, Ricky Stevenson and Andy Wiles had the distinction of claiming the scalp of out-of-form Bekele, the reigning Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m champion. Stevenson, victorious in the 3K race two years earlier, finished fifth behind the winner, Olympic and World 1500m champion Asbel Kiprop and Wiles was tenth - one place ahead of the disappointed Bekele, who afterwards blamed a lack of fitness for his lack-lustre performance.

Scottish cross country champion Freya Murray, who works in Newcastle and competes for the Chester-le-Street club, was fifth in the 6K women's race won by Ireland's newly-crowned European Cross Country champion Fionnuala Britton by an emphatic 20 seconds from Great Britain's Gemma Steel. Durham City's North-East champion, Rosie Smith, making her senior GB debut and competing in an international for the first time in eight years, finished 18th.

There was also a surprise defeat in the men's 8K race for Belgian's European champion, Atelaw Bekele, who could only claim third place behind Spain's Moroccan-born Ayad Lamdassem and the United States' Bobby Mack.

Former Elswick Harrier Ryan McLeod, in contention early in the race, slipped down on the second lap to finish a disappointing 21st.

Great Britain's only individual winner was Emelia Gorecka, who struck gold in the junior women's race, winning by 21 seconds.

Men's 8K: 1 A Lamdassem (Europe Select) 25.44; 2 B Mack (USA) 25.47; 3 A Bekele (Eur) 25.47; 5 F Tickner (GB) 25.55; 7 S Vernon (26.10; 8 T Humphries (GB) 26.07; 10 J Taylor (GB) 26.13; 21 R McLeod (GB) 27.13.

Men's International 3K: 1 A Kiprop (Kenya) 9.20; 2 J Hay (GB) 9.25; 3 E Kipchoge (Ken) 9.26; 5 R Stevenson (GB) 9.30; 10 A Wiles (GB) 9.42; 10 K Bekele (Eth)) 9.42.

Junior Men (6K): 1 K Erasson (US) 19.56; 2 K Clements (GB) 19.57; 3 M Shaw (GB) 19.59.

Women's 6K: 1 F Britton (Eur) 21.32; 2G Steel (GB) 21.52; 3 E Baker (GB) 22.08; 5 F Murray (GB) 22.17; 18 R Smith (GB) 23.18.

Junior Women (4K): 1 E Gorecka (GB) 14.48; 2 A Cuffe (US) 15.09; 3 M Seidel (US) 15.16.

Overall team placings: 1 Great Britain & Northern Ireland 144 pts; 2 USA 196; 3 Europe Select 215.

Leading North-East veteran Brian Rushworth gave his younger rivals a lesson in cross-country running with a record-breaking run in the Hartlepool Burn Road Harriers' Old Monks multi-terrain race at Hart Village.

The 49-year-old Sunderland Harriers, who won the North-East senior men's cross country championship a record ten times before joining the veteran ranks, hauled in early leader James Askew, Durham City's 20-year-old winner of last summer's Newton Aycliffe 10K road race, on the hilly, off road section to win in a record 30 mins 57 secs for the 5.5-mile course, despite the sticky conditions underfoot.

Sunderland Harriers celebrated a double when Michelle Holt finished 24th in a field of 237 finishers to win the women's race by over two minutes in 36 mins 40 secs.

Men: 1 B Rushworth (Sunderland M45) 30 mins 57 secs (record); 2 J Askew (Durham City) 31.13; 3 G Grounds (Billingham Marsh House) 32.32; 4 R Parker (Tynedale) 32.44; 5 N Barbour (BMH) 32.57.

Women: 1 M Holt (Sund) 36.40; 2 J Lee (Tynedale) 38.52; 3 S Scott (Tynedale) 39.27.