A gold medal for Keith Gerrard at the Inter-Counties Cross-Country Championships has completed his ambition to win the two major titles on the UK athletics calendar.

Following his victory a fortnight ago at the English National Championships, Gerrard stormed clear of the rest of the field in Birmingham to take the title, which is effectively the British championships.

Teams of six selected athletes representing the counties of England, plus the regions of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, lined up to compete over 12 kilometres at Cofton Park.

The Martin Bullock Manxsport athlete ran in a tight leading pack during the first three-kilometres of the race before making a decisive burst to open an 11 second gap on challengers Ricky Stevenson, Jonathon Brownlee and Phil Wicks.

During the final kilometre, the Manx Sports Aid recipient was able to ease down to cross the line in 34 minutes 57 seconds with a nine second winning margin over Stevenson.

Keith said: ‘I’m made up. It couldn’t have gone any better. My big effort came from a decisive move after having a look around and thinking I didn’t want to leave it too late – I thought I would test the guys out there and see what shape they were in.’