Charlotte Browning was the star of the show as Sussex runners produced impressive performances at the National Inter-County Cross Country Championships at Woollaton Park, Nottingham.

It completed a hat-trick for the Chichester runner after her victories at under-13 in 2001 and under-15 at her first attempt last season.

Craig Ivemy won a bronze medal and there was a near miss for Chris West.

Charlotte was expected to come under pressure from Welsh athlete Non Stanford in defence of her under-15s' title.

But she stormed to victory by three seconds, clocking 15min.42sec fover the 4km course. Crawley club athlete Danielle Christmas, representing Surrey, was fifth in 15min.54sec.

She said: "I am pleased to have won three in a row. I was determined to stay with Non because I knew she had been running well and I managed to get away close to the finish.

"But now I have to look to defend my national individual title at Parliament Hill in ten days and Non will be a problem there because she has done a lot of of her running over similar hilly courses."

Sarah Garret (Worthing) was the second Sussex team runner to cross the line, finishing 55th, 13 places ahead of Crawley club athlete Hannah Brooks, running for Surrey.

Ivemy was in a group of five runners who broke clear in the boys' under-17s race. They were locked together for much of the 6km but Ivemy was unable to match the finishing pace of Tony Moran (Manchester) and Kirk Wilson (North East) over the final 600m.

Ivemy kept his nose ahead of Matt Barnes-Smith (Suffolk) to ensure third place.

Chichester athlete Tom Bilham, in his first year in this age group, was 20th.

Chris West, a Bishop Luffa pupil, finished just one second behind under-13s pre-race favourite Curtis Pearce (Lancashire) over 3km.

West was outsprinted in the final dash for the finish, clocking 11min.07sec, one second behind Pearce and five seconds down on the silver medal.