CITY of Salisbury’s ace men’s road race team climbed back to leadership of the 30-club Hampshire road league on Sunday with four classy sub- 60-minute runs on the testing Ryde ten-mile course.

Sparkling sunshine on the Isle of Wight belied a gusty wind and around 400ft of ascent which slowed the field.

The winning quartet were led out by Stuart Holloway whose excellent 54min 29seconds for second place came after a race-long duel with Totton rival Nick Buis that was only settled on the seafront finishing straight by a margin of four seconds.

Chris Southern produced one of his best runs to take sixth with 56.36, Ben Brewster was close behind in 59.18 and veteran Kevin Tilley also made the top 20 with a fine 59.50.

That was good enough for the Salisbury club to knock Stubbington Green from the top of the table and take supremacy in a way reminiscent of last season’s success.

Katie West put the ladies’ team on the way to a wellearned third place overall too, her 66.46 being quickly followed by Sally Greenslade’s 71.47 and Ruth Thom 76.28.

Other Salisbury finishers were Dave West 65.07, John Ruskin 76.11, Nick Willetts 76.41, Liz Roberts 84.14, Andy Robbins 85.28, Jane Whiteley 90.15, Colin Martin 98.28 and Will Witt 102.13.

At Cardiff’s south west indoor track championships, Alex Mundell took the title in the strongly contested under 20s 800m with a rapid 2min 17sec. Then at the Wiltshire schools’ cross country on a soggy course near Chippenham, the versatile Mundell went on to win the senior girls’ race, followed by Emma Clarke in a fine third.

Abigail Burns took a good win in the minor girls’ event.

In the junior boys, Jack Bennett was seventh and Taylor Oakley 11th; Heidi Porter in the junior girls was 13th and Tasha Mundell 18th; Jay Domoney in the inter boys was sixth and Tyler Fairclough 12th.

Domoney then made his under 17 debut at the Indoor London Games 1500m at Lee Valley, finishing a good fourth despite the miles in his legs.