Chichester's Jamie Baker romped to a personal best and a new course record when he won the Gosport half-marathon title.

Baker established himself at the head of the field from the start and took control of the race over the second half of the rather flat and fast course leaving his rivals well adrift.

The winning time of 68min 11sec is the first time Baker has run inside 70 minutes. Only one other Sussex runner has run faster in the past five years and that was Brighton and Hove's Stuart Moran, the recent winner of the Brighton and Hove City 10km road race.

It was a full minute before Bournemouth's Mark Hargreaves crossed the line in second. Crawley's Kevin Holland had a good run to fill sixth place in 73min 38sec.

Crawley veteran Chris Cheeseman gained revenge on former British International Mark Easton at Belgrave Harriers' seven mile road-walking event.

Last February, when Cheeseman was returning after five months away from racing, Easton deprived him of the South of England 20km road walk title at Littlehampton.

Despite continuous rain a quarter mile climb on each of the six laps Cheeseman, who is 45 later this month, was several yards clear after the second lap and stretched his lead to more than 200 yards as he clocked 51min 25sec for victory, a full minute clear of Easton.

Steyning youngster Nick Ball, who was tackling the seven-mile distance for the first time, tried to stay with the leaders in the early stages only to tire towards the end as he was overtaken by Andrew Goudie. but fourth was still an excellent effort for the 16-year-old.

In the team event the Steyning finished third behind the Surrey Walking Club and Belgrave.

Brighton and Hove City's Peter Witcomb just missed out on a medal in the South of England Veterans cross-country championships at Margate but led his club into second place in the team competition.

Witcomb, who has been one of Sussex's leading cross country runners in his age group for the past 40 years, finished 100 yards down on Barnet's Derek Wilcock in third place as he clocked 34min 17sec for the fast but testing 8km course.

As in the individual event it was Barnet who stole Brighton and Hove's thunder in the team event with the north London club winning the with 21 points to Brighton's 31.