Sutton Park near Birmingham saw some top quality road racing on Saturday for the Midland Counties men’s 12-stage and women’s 6-stage events

Coventry Godiva won the women’s event for the first time after overhauling City of Stoke, who had built up a 42-second lead mid-race courtesy of Midland cross-country champion Katie Holt’s fastest long leg, Martin Duff reports.

Coventry’s Sian Rainsley followed Holt’s 29:03 home on stage three of the women’s race and her 29:32 was second best of the race. They then pulled out all of the stops as this was only triathlete Rainsley’s second race in five years and, for their first win here, they rounded off with former double English Schools 800m champion and junior international Rowena Cole.

Now aged 30, this was Cole’s first road run since this race five years earlier, with only the odd 400m outing since then. “But I wanted to help as we had a strong team,” she said.

Previous winners Charnwood were a distant fifth behind Wolverhampton but had two of the top three fastest short stages.

It was the 2014 European cross-country champion Gemma Steel who took the medal with 17:17. Team-mate Sophie Coldwell was third best behind Birchfield’s Chloe Richardson.

Notts AC took the men’s 12-stage event for the first time since 2015 after leading from the time that top veteran Alastair Watson gave them the lead on stage two.

The eventual winners then carved out a two-minute lead by the end of the four long stages. It was then pulled back significantly by Bristol’s Jack Millar on stage six and William Parkin before Freddie Hessian really opened things out for them on stage nine. The Notts lead then stretched to more than three minutes before 53-year-old Tim Hartley cruised round on the glory leg for a comfortable victory.

Bristol, winners for the past three championships, kept up the pressure for second, while Birchfield, who had Omar Ahmed fastest on the long stage with 25:30, took third ahead of new outfit Western Tempo.

Men (4×5.38M, followed by 8×3.16M):
1 Notts 3:56:56; 2 Bristol & W 3:58:34; 3 Birchfield 4:00:36

Fastest Long: O Ahmed (Bir) 25:30; G Beardmore (Worc) 26:18; A Watson 26:31

Fastest Short: F Hassan (Notts) 15:09; K Taylor (B&W) 15:11; L Duffy (Mansf) 15:14

Women (1×5.38M, 1×3.16M, 1×5.38M, 3×3.16M): 1 Coventry G 2:16:50; 2 Stoke 2:18:10; 3 Birchfield 2:18:41

Fastest Long: K Holt (Stoke) 29:03; S Rainsley (Cov G) 29:32; E Styles (Nun) 30:37

Fastest Short: G Steel (Charn) 17:17; C Richardson (Bir) 17:25; S Coldwell (Charn) 17:36