Published at 19:20, Thursday, 26 November 2009

RUNNER Laura Park has been awarded £1,000 in recognition of her outstanding sporting ability through the OCS Young Sports Person Awards in partnership with SportsAid.

AWARD: Laura Park

Park was one of two runners-up for the regional award in the North West region – won by Papcastle golfer Seb Crookall-Nixon – and was selected from thousands of young sports people who were identified and nominated to SportsAid by their sport's National Governing Body.

The 17-year-old from Dearham now spends much of her time in Dundee with Scottish long distance track and road running athlete Liz McColgan who is her coach.

Park has had a disappointing year because of repeated injury but she aims to regain her national cross country title and in the longer term hopes to represent GB seniors and compete in major championships.

Park’s greatest sporting achievement so far has been finishing 17th in the World Cross Country Championships at U20 level.

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