TALENT Gemma Holloway defeated Parliament Hill as she won the under-20 Southern Counties Cross-Country Championships.

It was a solid, competent run (with 13 Harriers racing in total) where she held off the attentions of the chasers to set up Holloway for the CAU Inter Counties race later this month where she will run as a senior.

The other outstanding run of the weekend came from Stanford-le-Hope’s Hayley Instance, who was in and around the top 10 for the whole race and overtook two athletes late on to clinch eighth.

In the senior race more than 1,000 runners stormed up the first hill and Thurrock’s Alec Finch did well to clinch 220th place.

The most eye-catching performance amongst the other ten was Sam Smith’s 47th place in the high-quality under 20’s field.

Results: U13 girls Demi Eves 77th, U13 boys Dylan Harrod 137th, Sonny Vehit 227th, Kai Lovelock 250th. U15 girls Amy Raven 244th. U15 boys Ben Prior 89th. U17 boys Sarab Dhillon 91st, Joe Logan 131st, Jack Exley 169th.

Harriers recorded a number of strong results at the London under-20 and Seniors Indoor Games at Lee Valley last weekend.

In the 60m race, Yinka Sodipo came 5th (7.02s - personal best), with Nweike Nwabude sixth (7.15s) and Jesse Allen also getting a PB (7.45s).

In the long jump Nwabude came third with a season’s best jump of 6.61m. Natalie LeBeau jumped 4.62m (SB).

In the high jump Joseph Winn jumped 1.85m.