Conditions were almost ideal for the Brighton and Hove City 10km road race along the seafront.

Despite the clash with the Reebok Cross Country Challenge at Margate, which incorporated the trials for the European Championships the times were considerably faster than 12 months ago and for the first time for several years a local runner got among the medals in the men's race.

Much of the pace could be credited to South Africa's Trevor James who, after a rather leisurely first kilometre, split the field asunder and dragged his pursuers to fast times.

By the time the runners passed the Palace Pier for the first time James had established a 200-metre lead and he was to double this before the finish, which he reached in 30min.08sec, more than a minute faster than the winning time last year.

James said: "It was a bit slow to start with but conditions were not bad so I pushed the pace along and was surprised no one came with me."

Darrell Smith, who runs for the Crowborough club, managed to break clear of a group of Sussex runners well before the halfway mark and held on to second place in 30min.50sec, but a tremendous battle for the bronze medal saw 1998 winner Dave Miles from Birchfield, Crawley's Louis Jones and the promoting club's Tracy Harris locked in battle for the bronze medal for most of the race.

In the final stages it was Harris, better known as a triathlete, who managed to squeeze home in a personal best of 31min.25sec.

In the women's race Jo Hinde, from Hastings, won in 37min.17sec.

THE Sussex Police team took second place in their category at the National Police 10-mile road running championships in Northumberland.

Veteran Simon Morley again led the team home finishing 11th overall in 58min.25sec, which earnt him third place in the over-40 group. Peter Bidmead won the over-50 title in 62min.27sec.