It was first blood to Finn McNally over the new course at the Chichester 10km road race on Sunday.
After many years, as the Chichester Priory 10k, in the historic town the race had been switched to a new course at Goodwood Aerodrome and there did not seem to be as many West of England and non-Sussex athletes in action at the event this year.
However the Brighton Phoenix athlete took care of those that were on show and chalked up an impressive seventy metre victory over Southampton’s Alex Wall-Clark in 30:46 to 31:01.
Ben Johnson from Southport Waterloo took the bronze medal place in 31:16 before a trio of Sussex athletes completed the first half dozen finishers whereas last year we had to wait for seventh place to see a Sussex runner across the line.
Crawley’s James Westlake, who is a talented footballer and is rarely seen racing on Saturdays, finished fourth in 31:43 and he was closely followed by County championship bronze medallist Kevin Moore (Brighton & Hove) in 31:52 and Josh Burgess (Lewes) in 32:09. Brighton & Hove’s Kevin Rojas grabbed a place in the top ten finishing ninth in 32.19 while local boy James Baker was the first veteran to finish placing 14th in 33:06.
Sussex runners dominated the Women’s race with Izzy Coomber (Lewes) finishing 39th overall to take the women’s title in 36:13 from the home club’s Rebecca Moore who clocked 35:26 and Brighton & Hove’s Helena Tobin in 36:18 but she was actually squeezed into fourth place in the women’s event by County Masters champion Caroline Hoyte (Arena 80) who was first veteran to finish and was the third woman across the finishing line in 36:06.
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