Rowe eases to win - Dawes claims series

STEVE DAWES has held on to win the GIACC's Jones and Partners Winter League, despite missing the final four-mile event on the Bunker Hill loop at L'Ancresse. With Dawes at home with a bug, Alan Rowe made only his second appearance in the five-race series and chalked up a straightforward win.

'It was nice to have a bit of a workout,' said the winner, who like several colleagues had been a bit under the weather at the recent Hampshire Championships.

Rowe finished 59sec. ahead of his nearest challenger, Lee Garland, while Dave Dyke took third and the series runner-up spot.

The fast-improving Tim Coates, one of the finds of the series, finished fourth, while Louise Perrio broke into the top 10 and at the same time stretched her lead at the top of Division three.

Rowe heaped praise on the new island women's number one.

'It's been a stunning breakthrough really. She's getting up there with the top men and more and more are having to look over their shoulders.'

Chris O'Neill, who placed 19th of the 41 runners, took the overall Division Two honours from Tom Warry who ultimately paid for missing one race too many.

Ian Garner was the leading Division Four runner, finishing two places ahead of the series winner, Jeremy Mew, who had been looking to complete a clean sweep of wins.

Another fine run came from under-17 Jonathan Bailey.

The senior race was held in conjunction with the latest junior section race and Bailey placed ninth, three seconds ahead of Perrio and inside the under-17s' record.

While the under-17s ran the full distance, the under-15s were restricted to one two-mile lap, during which they joined Bailey in mixing it with many of the Division One runners near the head of the field.

Danny Carre narrowly took the under-15 honours and finished just outside Matt Loveridge's record.

Carre only managed to burn off a fit-again Michael Batiste in the closing stages, the two of them having dropped off a still under-the-weather Love-ridge in the latter part of the race.

Sarah Mercier, Kelly Loveridge and Will Bodkin all set course records in across the age-groups.