GREAT BRITAIN junior international Mark Buckingham opened his cross country season at the Reebok Cross Challenge at Senneleys Park, Birmingham, with third place in the junior men's event.
The series was established to provide athletes with top-quality competition on a regular basis throughout the winter and two of the races double as selection for the Great Britain and Northern Ireland teams to contest the European and World Cross Country Championships.
The recent wet weather ensured that the hilly, muddy course was even more testing than usual and resulted in a slight change to the usual route as the first crossing over the brook was deemed unsafe.
The junior and senior men ran together in the final race of the day, over a course of 10k incorporating a small lap and three large laps.
Buckingham met up with his Holmfirth clubmate, Mark Dewhirst, who had travelled to the event with his Oxford University colleagues.
The race was probably the biggest field the athletes had tackled with around 800 athletes facing the starter.
The race was quick from the off with the Holmfirth men settling into a sensible pace, Buckingham in the top 50 on the first lap.
It was difficult to see where the junior men featured in such a large field, but he moved into the top five junior placings on the second lap and began to improve his overall position.
The race was won by Matt Lole, of Coventry Godiva Harriers in the Birmingham League, with first place in the Reebok Challenge going to Peter Riley, of Leigh Harriers in 35min 26sec.
Buckingham was pleased with third junior and his best placing in the Reebok series, finishing in 37-50 (31st overall), just 13sec behind the winner, Steven Waldron of UWIC (37-37) and 11sec behind Kelvin Hardy, of Ipswich.
Dewhirst found the mud tough going and finished 117th overall in 40-30 (61st in the Reebok Challenge).
* Holmfirth Harriers will be in action on Saturday at the English National Cross Country Relays in Mansfield.
The junior men's team of Buckingham, Matthew Pierson and Shaun Pickering will be hoping to improve upon their fourth placing of last year.
