ASDA Horwich Carnival 5km, inc AAA Championship, Horwich, Lancs

Mark Miles wins AAA 5k title - but Bels just miss out on team Championship

Things couldn't have been tighter at the conclusion of this classy inaugural AAA 5 km road championship held in the West Pennine moorland town of Horwich.

Birchfield's Wilfred Taragon had made an early break with his clubmate Abdulaziz Rahman in second, ahead of a large pack containing most of the Belgrave, Morpeth and Salford teams. Mark Miles was moving forward well over the second of the three laps with our other scorers David Anderson looking strong but Kassa Tadesse beginning to suffer.

Drama in plenty came on the final circuit as Bud Baldaro's familiar commentary whipped up excitement. On the long, gradual climb to the finish Taragon was still ahead but, incredibly, "Milesy" was storming the hill behind him and closing him down all the way to the line. With £950 on offer for a win in a course record there was much at stake. But it was Taragon who triumphed, with these two plus the next six men all inside the best ever time for the course.

Teamwise, Birchfield had a terrific start with 1st and 3rd but didn't have a third man in sight. Then three Salford vests came up the hill and across the line in close order - 10th, 11th and 12th - surely that clinched it for them. But maybe not! David Anderson was right on Salford's tail in 13th with Jonathan Blackledge, running his fastest ever 5k (road or track) having overtaken Kassa to become our last scorer.

A quick tally showed that we seemed to have nicked it with 2, 13, 17 (32) to Salford's 10, 11, 12 (33) and Birchfield's 1, 3, 34 (38). Not so: fourth placed Mark Tucker (Australia) was not eligible for the AAA race and when his place was taken out of the result it was 30:30 to Belgrave:Salford with the latter prevailing in the championship due to closing in their team before us.

Birhan Dagne was on course for a place on the podium but faded towards the end, losing positions as she crossed the line, due to a dizzy spell. She recovered sufficiently to head off to Stoke where a couple of hours later she proceeded to win the 1500 metres for our UKWAL team!

Men. 1 W Taragon (Birchfield/Kenya) 13:54; 2 M Miles (Belgrave) 13:58; 3 A Rahman (Birchfield/Sudan); 4 M Tucker (Australia) 14:10; 5 I Hudspith (Morpeth) 14:15; 6 M Smith (Tipton) 14:16 ... 10 A Jones (Salford) 14:28; 11 T Abyu (Salford) 14:28; 12 S Winton (Salford/New Zealand) 14:29; 13 D Anderson (Belgrave) 14:30; 17 J Blackledge (Belgrave) 14:43; 28 K Tadesse (Belgrave) 15:04; 33 T Watson (Belgrave) 15:12.

Teams: 1 Salford (9, 10, 11) 30; 2 Belgrave (2, 12, 16) 30; 3 Birchfield (1, 3, 33) 37.

Women. 1 V Gill (Chorley) 16:05; 2 K Ramsey (Charnwood) 16:18; 3 P Powell (Blackburn) 16:28; 5 B Dagne (Belgrave) 16:34.

Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.