In-form Crawley pole vaulter Nick Buckfield has broken the British indoor record again.

He soared over 5.81m to win the international indoor competition at Bad Segeberg, near Hamburg in Germany.

Buckfield set a British indoor record at Bedford last month when he cleared 5.62m.

It is his fifth British indoor record since 1996.

Buckfield, who has been selected for the British team for the European Indoor Championships, also holds the British outdoor record at 5.80m.

Sussex athletes Julie Mitchell and Claire Milborrow were in action for England in a match against a European and Wales select team at Cardiff.

Mitchell, from Burgess Hill, was squeezed into third place in blanket finish in the 1,500m.

European runner Lisa Toth was the winner in 4min.25.28sec. Welsh girl Ceri Martin, who Mitchell beat in the National Championships, clocked 4min.25.50sec in second place, just one hundredth of a second ahead of the former Sussex champion.

In the 60m hurdles, Horsham's Clare Milborrow was third behind the national silver medallist Rachael King, from Wales, and the European Denise O'Rourke.

Lucy Webber, from Burgess Hill, competing as a guest in the pole vault, took second place behind Tracy Bromfield (England) Webber cleared 3.70m.

Competing in the British Milers Club, Joel Kidger (Crawley) ran his fastest ever 1,500m in 3min. 54.80sec, two seconds faster than he has ever run before and five second quicker than his best last track season.

Steyning's Sophie Hales, in her first season in the under-20 age group, has been showing the seniors the way home in recent weeks.

Hales romped away from the clubmate Jo Hesketh to win the Cambridge Road Walking League at Bexley in the fast time of 53min.41sec. Hesketh set 54min.10sec.

Hales (26min.17sec) was nearly one minute clear of fellow under-20 walker Claire Reeves from Dartford when she competed over 5km in the London Open walk at Victoria Park.

Steyning veteran Richard Emsley, just missed out on breaking the 50-minute barrier in the men's 10km. race at Victoria Park.

He was third in a good class race field in 50min.01sec.

The Sussex 20km road walking championships, which were scheduled to be held at Steyning next Saturday, has been delayed for one week.

The Race Walking Association have moved their National Championships to March 3 at Imber Court. The Sussex event will be held in conjunction with this event for this year only.

The County Association felt it would be unreasonable to ask the top walkers to race hard on two successive weekends.

Depleted Sussex teams faced tough opposition in senior under-20 races at the South East Schools Inter-county cross-country match at Banstead.

Larger, stronger counties surround Sussex but they did manage some fine individual runs particularly from Kelly Gunn, from Varndean College, who had missed the county schools event.

At Banstead, Gunn led the Sussex challenge finishing an excellent 11th, just two places ahead of Holy Trinity's Sam Webb.

Charlotte Best, from the Crawley club, who goes to school in Surrey and is primarily an 800m runner, had a brilliant run to finish in third place.