Basildon's Eamonn Martin saw the GB women's team claim a bronze in the 10k Challenge in Athens.

While attention was focussed on the London Marathon, former winner Martin managed a seven-strong party in Greece and was rewarded by some good performances from the women.

But he sympathised with the three men's runners -- who struggled here just two weeks after they ran in the 12k cross country in Zurich.

Glynn Tromans ran 29:31.44 for 20th place and Matt Smith clocked 29:42.45 in 23rd while Rob Birchall came home in 30:31.

And as Martin told the Evening Echo last week, he is anxious to see if their schedule is giving them the best chance to achieve their potential.

"Now that the race is over, I shall be looking for an opportunity to sit down with the men, and see what they do and what they don't do," he said. I shall be interested to find out if they do enough high standard work on the track, as I did.

"I'm looking forward to hearing their racing plans. I don't think I could have performed my best 10,000m on the track two weeks after I'd run the World Cross."

There was better news for the womens team of Liz and Hayley Yelling and European junior champion Charlotte Dale.

Liz came seventh with 32mins 22.21sec, ahead of Hayley in 11th on 32:37.12.

And in 16th place Dale caught the eye as she lowered her own British junior record to 32:52.60.

None of the team managed to reach the World Championship qualifying mark of 31:45.00, but Dale comfortably cleared the European under-23 target, while fellow junior Louise Damen shattered her PB by 37 seconds to run 33:28.61.

Published Wednesday, April 16, 2003

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