Southend Athletic Club's under-15 boys have captured the Nike AAA of England Young Athletes Road Relay Championships at Sutton Coldfield.

Strong winds caused the abandonment of this event last autumn but it was the seaside trio of Adam Hickey, Mark Bailey and David Crichton that blew all rivals away in the re-run.

Crichton ran a brilliant first leg and got off to a great start by leading the pack of nearly 100 runners round the first bend.

He stayed strong and covered his 3.861km stage in 12 mins 45 secs for fourth place, finishing six seconds behind the first stage leader.

Westcliff High School's Mark Bailey then put the seasiders into the lead, but Aldershot's Steven Blake went into the lead near the final 1,000 metres.

Bailey held on and they pulled away from the rest of the field to see Bailey clock 12mins 30secs, the fifth fastest of the day, to hand over to top star Adam Hickey in second spot.

Hickey's old rival Laurence Cox went out first on the final lap for Aldershot with a nice lead over Hickey who, like Crichton, is a pupil at Southend High for Boys.

But Hickey started to slowly gain on Cox and eventually overhauled him.

The seaside runner then pulled ahead and won by eight seconds and had the fastest lap overall of 11mins 53secs -- earning him a second gold medal.

Southend's winning time of 37mins. 08 secs was some eight seconds clear of Aldershot.

Published Friday, April 11, 2003

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