Athletics: Murray comes so close to victory in Japan

SCOTTISH champion Freya Murray (Edinburgh AC) continued her fine cross-country form when she finished runner-up, just one second behind Kazue Kojima in the Fukuoka International in Japan.

But the 26-year-old Heriot-Watt engineering graduate was disappointed as she had led for over half of the six-kilometre course: "I was only caught with 500 metres to go so I'm a wee bit disappointed," said Murray, who took the South African title at Potchefstroom in January while on a training trip there.

Competing in an otherwise all-Japanese field, Murray was timed at 19:33, seven seconds clear of another Japanese, Hitomi Niiya, who was third.

Elsewhere Guy Learmonth (Lasswade) set his fifth Scottish National Under-20 Indoor 800 metres record of 2010 when he won the AAA Under-20 title in 1:50.25 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. That time, a new championship record, cut 0.32sec off the time the 17-year-old schoolboy set in winning the senior race at the Celtic International in Cardiff the previous Sunday and is more than a second faster than when he won the Scottish senior indoor title last month.

"I'm absolutely delighted – I've had the best indoor season ever," said Learmonth.