Athletics with Reg Hook

Hailsham's Craig Ivemy reversed his defeat at the hands of Lee Emanuel at the first of this season's Sussex Cross Country League events at Goodwood in October with a convincing victory at Crawley in the second race in the series.

Conditions at the Crawley course were not the usually damp and dreary grey November afternoon but a warm sunny day when a cross-country event has much more attraction than most other Saturday afternoon activities.

Craig was determined not the let the talented Hastings athlete get the better of him and he forced the pace right from the start and although he had a group with him for the early stages of the race the Ringmer schoolboy squeezed the pace and broke clear to win by some ten seconds with a time of 16min. 31sec. for the three mile race.

Nick Lucas from Lewes, who had finished fifth in the first race and like Craig is in his first year in this age group, had a good run to finish ninth in 17min. 41sec.

The senior men's five-mile race saw Joel Kidger from Maresfield making a rare appearance in a Sussex League race and he showed that he is likely to carry his fine track form through to the Cross Country season. After a slight injury ruled him out of some of the early season cross country events, he appeared to be in cracking as he powered through strongly over the closing stages of the race to take second place in 27min. 35sec.

After more than six months sidelined through injury East Hoathly's Nigel Gates made a much welcome return to competition in the senior men's event and he was able to stay with the leading group, including Joel, for the early part of the race and never really lost contact as the gaps stretched over the second half of the race.

Nigel finished in fourth place in 27min. 50sec., only twenty four seconds down on race winner Paul Rodgers from Crawley.

Tom Sargant from Hailsham, who spends more time devoted to triathlons than running, was in good form and he finished eighth in 28min. 37sec. while Jack Vail from Ditchling, filled ninth place in 28min. 53sec. and was the second Under 20 runner to finish the course.

Hailsham's Ben Warren also had a good run filling tenth place in 29min. 20sec.

The Under 15 Boys 2 -mile race saw Todd Leckie from Hailsham greatly improve on his fifth placing in the first race by chasing home Chichester's Tom Bilham finishing just one second adrift in 14min. 37sec.

Rob Mullett from Lewes also had a good run to finish seventh in 15min. 16sec.

This weekend the first of this season's Sussex Cross Country championships are being held when the Veterans Cross County events are held at the Pestalozzi Village near Battle.

The first race is scheduled for 11.00am.