Jenny Brown, from Eastbourne, finished a brilliant third behind Olympic medallist Kelly Holmes in the International 3km road race in the grounds of Balmoral Castle.

Brown has had her best season to date and, although she was a little disappointed with her run in the World Cross country Championships, she will certainly be lifted by her form in Scotland.

The 31-year-old stayed with Holmes and Sale's Amanda Parkinson as they set a fast early pace. Over the final 800m Brown was cut adrift as the tempo lifted but she will be pleased with her time of 9mins 35secs, just ten seconds down on Holmes.

Sussex athletes, particularly the sprinters, sharpened up for the coming league season with some sparkling racing in the Tom Lintern Medal meeting at Crawley.

Both Worthing's Alistair Gordon and Crawley's Elaine Wells completed sprint doubles and both raced as well as they had done last year.

Gordon clocked 11.0sec. to win the 100m, which equalled his fastest time of last year, while in the 200m he looked in even better form clocking 22.0secs, which is faster than any Sussex athlete achieved last season.

It was almost the same from Wells who completed her convincing double, clocking 12.5secs, and 25.9secs which equalled her bests of 2000.

Mark Vidler, from Hastings, in his first year in the senior age group, chopped more than a second off his personal best, striding to a confident victory in the 800m in 1min. 55.1sec.

Candie Lintern, the daughter of Tom whom the meeting commemorates, fittingly won the under-20 discus with a fine effort of 39.55m.

Making her debut in the under-20 age group, Alice Coutinho, from Lewes, ran a powerful race to record a personal best of 4min. 58.7sec.

The race was run in conjunction with the senior event and the Lewes runner left the seniors behind, winning by ten metres.

Coutinho was fourth in the 4km race in the British Colleges Cross-country Championships at Millfield School in Somerset.

Meanwhile, Caroline Hoyte, of Arena 80, was the only runner to travel to Milton Keynes and the South of England six stage Road Relay Championship.

Although she knew that no one was there to take over from her, Hoyte ran a brilliant opening leg to lead the runners home by nearly one minute in 18min. 34sec.

Hoyte's time proved to be the second fastest lap of the day. Her time was faster than all but four Sussex men in the 12 stage relay.