Cross Country: Murray win is perfect prep for Poland

CAPITAL cross country ace Freya Murray has lifted her third major title of the winter, the Inter-Counties Championship at Birmingham, to guarantee her place in the World Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland on Sunday, 28 March.

The Edinburgh AC runner scored an impressive victory over the defending champion and English champion, fellow Scot Steph Twell (Aldershot) over a three-lap 8K course.

It was a superb run by the 26-year-old Newcastle-based engineer who has already won the Scottish and South African titles this winter and finished runner-up in the Fukuoka international in Japan last month.

"There was a big group of us together after the first two laps but Steph and I broke away," said Murray, who then took the lead with 800 metres left and went on to win by nine seconds.

"I felt great and I'm really pleased as I just wanted to finish in the first three and make certain of my place in the World Championships."

Murray and Twell are now certain to lead the British team due to be announced on Wednesday, with an outside chance of sixth placed Anglo-Scot Laura Kenney joining them.

But not one Scottish man featured highly, the Scottish champion Alistair Hay (Central) being back in 29th place.

Although not in a World Championship event, Lasswade's Ross Matheson made it four wins out of four in the 6k under-17 race to pick up the McCain's Cross Challenge title for that age group.

Sarah Inglis (Lothian) just held off fellow Scot Beth Potter for fourth place in the women's under-20 race.