Published at 19:44, Thursday, 28 February 2008

RUNNING sensation Laura Park has won another title at the English National Club Cross Country Championships.

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And the 16-year-old yet again displayed her huge potential for when she breaks into the senior ranks.

Park was competing in the U17 race which was staged as a combined event with the U20 race.

In a 350-strong field Park finished third overall, beaten ing only by U20 runners Steph Twell, the current European U20 cross country champion, and Jo Harvey from Exeter.

Next Saturday Park together with club-mate Paul Richardson, and Abbey Foy, of Seaton AC, will race for Cumbria in the England Schools Cross Country Championshps at Liverpool.

The three have qualified through their schools - Park and Foy both go to Netherhall School, Maryport, and Richardson to Cockermouth School

The English National Club races were held on a 5km course over heavy undulating farm land adjacent to Alton Towers theme park.

Park led the race for most of the first lap of the two laps and looked very comfortable at the beginning of the second.

However, Twell made her move and used all her vast experience to gradually pull away with the chasing pack.

Park used her strength to pass two runners in the closing stages to finished third in the combined race and comfortably take gold in the U17 race.

She finished ahead of the previously unbeaten English U17 championship and current European bronze medalist Charlotte Purdue by 20 seconds.

Park’s English National Club title is her second - last year she won the U15 event.

Also competing at Alton Towers was Park’s clubmate, Hannah Bethwaite, who is competing in her first season at U13 level.

She came home with a fantastic third place in a field of 367 runners and only one second off a silver medal.

She was lying in about 15th after the first third of the race but gradually picked off the runners in front of her to take bronze just 21 seconds behind the winner.

Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk